Dwijen Rangnekar writes lead in The Hindu

'The lesson from the Supreme Court ruling on Gleevec is that pharmaceutical multinational corporations need to focus research on genuine innovations rather than on ways to evergreen their patents' This is a landmark judgement – followed by a range of actors; feeding into WTO/TRIPS issues and access to medicine globally.

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/calling-big-pharmas-bluff/article4573890.ece 

For an earlier guest post from Dwijen see link below. http://kafila.org/2012/08/21/drugs-in-3d-and-what-matters-in-the-novartis-case-at-supreme-court-dwijen-rangnekar/

Lynas, the Law and the People: What’s Temporary and Permanent about “Licence”?

(Friday, 4 January 2013)

Abstract

The ongoing saga of the Lynas Rare Earth processing plant in Gebeng may be read in many different ways. It may be viewed as a conflict between the developmental priorities of the Malaysian government keen to enhance its export earning through Foreign Direct Investment arrangements and the environmental and health concerns of local and national sectors of the population weary of such ventures into hazardous industries. Or, it might be understood as a conflict between the commercial motivations of profit and economic opportunities of a multinational company (through its local subsidiary) and the values of environmental protection. Differently, we may read the conflict as one pertaining to issues of transparency and accountability, of technical best-practice and stringent enforcement of environmental regulations, of government policy-making and public participation. Variously, these many issues may be seen to underlie the still on-going legal challenge surrounding the grant of the Temporary Operation Licence to Lynas Malaysia Sdn. Bhd.

This presentation does not seek to repeat the legal arguments along the lines of conflict mentioned above. The focus of the talk will instead be twofold: first, to interrogate the ‘identity’ and meaning of the three social ‘institutions’ involved - Lynas, the law (and by implication the state), and the ‘people’ – as they emerge, find expression, and are discursively constructed in the conflict. Secondly, to explore the wider implications of the notion of ‘license’ that go beyond its limited scope in terms of the TOL dispute. What is revealed from this different reading of the story of Lynas, The Law, and The People, are more pressing questions regarding the nature of the geography and distribution of rights, responsibilities, privileges and risks associated with differentiated 'citizenship' in a globalised political economy, and on the varying consequences of the 'temporary' and the 'permanent', of located and dislocated temporality, that follow from the affirmations of 'licence', on the one hand, and the imposition of containments/bans, on the other. From this understanding of the present contexts of variegated 'citizenship', some preliminary (and perhaps provocative) thoughts might be put forward on the politics of encounter between the 'corporation' and the 'people' within globalised states.

Jonathan Garton has been appointed a Specialist Adviser to the House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee for its Inquiry on the Regulation of the Charitable Sector and the Charities Act 2006. Details of the Inquiry, which will consider the impact and implementation of the 2006 Act, can be found on the Committee's website (http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/public-administration-select-committee/news/charities-iq/).