COVID-19: An Opportunity to Fix Dysfunctional Biomedical R&D System
By Sreenath Namboodiri
Failures of the patent system to meet the public health priorities demand a new approach in research and development (R&D) financing and incentive to pharmaceutical innovations. An R&D model delinking the cost of R&D from the price of the product is the way forward.
Will post COVID-19 pandemic lead to a climate compatible, more just, resilient and sustainable society?
By Youba Sokona
As a result of the economic shutdown and physical lockdown triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, greenhouse gas emissions, in particular CO2, have decreased and air pollution levels have seriously dropped. However, the temporary reduction of greenhouse gas emissions resulting from the pandemic is not to be celebrated as it is not a result of deliberate climate and sustainable development policy. People who are the most vulnerable, most marginalized, and least empowered are the hardest hit by both COVID-19 and climate change. Both crises require robust scientific, evidence-based, accurate information in order to inform adequate policies and actions. They are global in nature and as such need global participation at all levels as well as strong international cooperation and transparency for their resolution.
Reforming Responsibly: Why Governments Should Assess the Human Rights Impacts of Economic Reforms
By Daniel Bradlow
The purpose of economic reforms is to change the structure and overall direction of an economy. They therefore will affect the amount and allocation of resources available to a country. This means that the reforms will also affect the human rights situation in the country. This requires impact assessments of each reform option before it is implemented.
The adverse human rights impact of economic inequality
By Blerim Mustafa
Increasing economic inequality is a defining challenge of our time. Economic growth can often be disproportionate and unequal, adversely affecting marginalized and disadvantaged groups in society. Economic inequality has had adverse economic, social and political impacts for social stability and cohesion, political participation, poverty reduction, as well as the enjoyment of human rights. The realization of human rights cannot be separated from broader questions of economic and social justice.
India and recent updates on the OECD/G20 Inclusive Framework’s Two-Pillar Approach
By Subhash Jangala
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)/Group of Twenty (G20) Inclusive Framework in its January 2020 Statement has affirmed the commitment to arrive at a consensus-based solution to the tax challenges arising out of digitalization of the economy by the end of 2020 and take forward the on-going discussion on the two-pillar approach. This article examines some of the key issues in the Statement for developing countries, such as the scope, new nexus rules, role of accounting standards and proposed source rules. India’s proposal on profit attribution through a two-factor apportionment using employees and assets is mentioned as a potential option for country-wise thresholds in the new nexus.
Appeal in ISDS: Appealing for the Host State?
By Grace L. Estrada
Reforms to Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) are being discussed in the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) Working Group III. One possible reform is the development of an appellate mechanism, either as part of the proposed two-tier standing investment court, or as a stand-alone appellate mechanism. From the perspective of developing countries as host states that face possible claims from investors, how appealing is an appellate mechanism in ISDS?
Enabling and Benefitting from Tax Avoidance: The Case of Canada in Africa’s Extractive Sector
By Alexander Ezenagu, PhD
The treatment of multinational entities as separate entities for tax purposes is incompatible with economic reality. As such, multinational entities are able to erode tax bases and shift profits to low tax jurisdictions. Due to the base erosion and profit shifting activities of multinational entities, African countries struggle to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – to eradicate poverty, invest adequately in infrastructure and its industries, significantly reduce illicit financial flows and strengthen domestic resource mobilization – as they rely heavily on corporate taxation for a large part of their public revenue.
If African countries are to achieve their SDGs, there is an urgent need for a new international tax system that aligns where economic activities occur with where profits are taxed. A practical alternative is the unitary taxation of multinational entities. Unitary taxation treats multinational companies as a single entity, allocating the global profit to the jurisdictions where economic activities occur and value is created.
This article calls for the purposeful study of the unitary taxation approach to income allocation and serious consideration of its merits by the relevant supranational bodies. (more…)
Intellectual Property and Plant Protection: Developments and Challenges in Asia
Dr. Kamalesh Adhikari
The creation of legal regimes to protect exclusive intellectual property rights over new plant varieties is not a recent phenomenon. National laws that recognise intellectual property for plant varieties originated decades ago in North America and Europe. The first of these laws took the form of a specialised plant patent regime, which the United States of America introduced in the form of the Plant Patent Act in 1930. A few decades later, laws to protect plant varieties as intellectual property appeared in the form of national plant breeders’ rights regimes in a number of developed countries, initially in Europe and later in other regions. A major motivation for these developed countries to embrace plant breeders’ rights regimes was the advent of the 1961 Convention of the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (the UPOV Convention). Mainly after the mid-1990s, an increasing number of developing and least-developed countries in Asia as well have begun either to draft or implement national legislation to grant intellectual property for plant varieties, albeit in ways that are distinct from how developed countries of North America and Europe have conceptualised their national plant breeders’ rights laws. (more…)
The Importance of “Developing National Ecosystems for South-South and Triangular Cooperation to Achieve Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development” – on the occasion of launching the publication
By Yuefen LI
To maximize the benefits of South-South and Triangular Cooperation (SSTrC), it would be imperative to have an effective “national ecosystem” – an institutional framework at national level. Over the years, the pace of institutional improvements in conducting SSTrC by Southern countries has lagged far behind the fast expansion of SSTrC in size, making it a constraint for unleashing the full potential of SSTrC. On 26 September 2019, the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB), the South Centre and the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC) launched the joint publication entitled “Developing National Ecosystems for South-South and Triangular Cooperation to Achieve Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development” on the side lines of the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. It discusses how to strengthen national ecosystems to promote SSTrC. The concept of national ecosystem advocates a bottom-up and incremental approach. It emphasizes that the national ecosystem is not meant to be prescriptive or a one size fits all model. Developing an effective national ecosystem for SSTrC requires understanding of the national realities and objectives and takes time, effort, commitments and financing. (more…)
Last chance for the Global South? Pursuing the South’s interests in reforming the Investor-State Dispute Settlement system in the multilateral arena
By Jose Manuel Alvarez Zarate and Maciej Żenkiewicz
The current Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) system is mainly criticized for its lack of transparency, unbalanced rights and obligations between State and investors, and the expansive interpretation of arbitrators of the investment protection treaties’ vague rules. Any reform of the ISDS should benefit developing countries that are facing most of the ISDS claims. The decisions taken at the thirty-seventh session of the United Nations Commission for International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) Working Group III (WGIII) on ISDS Reform (New York, 1-5 April 2019) are likely to influence the way in which the discussions about the reform of ISDS at the multilateral level will go. The developing countries should shape their agenda in such a way to facilitate consensus in the context of advancing their collective interests and perspectives. (more…)
‘Playing’ it right: A path ahead
By A.L.A. Azeez
The Olympic ideal and inclusive sports and their contribution to the promotion of human rights, peace and development were extensively deliberated on at the United Nations Human Rights Council Social Forum 2018. The outcome of the forum could contribute to strengthening inclusion and solidarity through a human rights- and Sustainable Development Goals-based approach to major sporting events, in particular the 2024 Paris Olympics. (more…)
Understanding global inequality in the 21st century
By Jayati Ghosh
Inequality has increased since it caught the attention of the international community. The claims that global inequality has decreased because of the faster rise in per capita incomes in populous countries like China and India must be tempered by several considerations. National policies are crucial in this worsening state of affairs and the international economic architecture and associated patterns of trade and capital flows encourage such policies. More national policy space is required for governments, especially in developing countries, to pursue policies that would move towards more sustainable and equitable development which in turn requires significant changes in the global architecture. None of this can be done without some international coordination, and there is a need to revive a progressive and acceptable form of multilateralism that supports the working people across the world, rather than the interests of large capital. (more…)
