WORLD
A letter sent by the Property Rights Alliance to the World Health Organization (WHO) says the removal of brands from packaging is a “gross violation” of intellectual property rights and has failed to achieve its intended goals. It also said it was time to end “ineffective” plain packaging for any kind of product.
The Property Rights Alliance is an international alliance of 62 think tanks, advocacy groups, and civil society organizations.
In its letter, citing Australia as an example, the alliance said the measure on tobacco was a “complete failure”. “The most recent batch of data [from the Australian government] is from 2016, and for the first time in 23 years, it reports no statistically significant decline in the overall daily smoking rate between 2013 (12.8%) and 2016 (12.2%),” the letter reads.
The alliance also said that the costs generated by plain packaging were “enormous” due to the “loss of the innovation incentive to the economy and society” and the “mutilation of established international IP law”.
“Intellectual property rights are human rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Article 17, the right to ownership, Article 19, the right to freedom of expression, and article 27, the right to protection of material interests. In this regard, even if plain packaging is effective, it should still be repealed, as rights are inalienable and should not be discarded for political purposes,” the letter reads.