But leaving aside its cultural or anthropological implications, this reform is complete nonsense from a legal point of view and another example of how little substance the new Constitution of Ecuador has. As the Ecuadorian jurist Xavier Flores mentions:

It is completely inappropriate to confer rights without correlate obligations (what kind of duties can we demand from lakes or rivers?). But even worse is to confer rights to an entity that cannot exercise them.

The new constitutional article tries to solve this problem by stating that human beings can act as proxies, and grants these proxies the right to sue on behalf of an ecosystem. To justify this the Ecuadorian legislators used as an analogy the case of legal persons (companies, foundations, NGOs, etc.), which are represented by physical persons.

First, this analogy is incorrect from a legal perspective because legal persons constitute an extension of the rights of the physical persons that create or administer them - and not the other way around. This is obviously not the case of nature.

Second, this legal inconsistency also translates itself into a practical problem: how is it going to be decided who has the right to represent nature? Since there is no ownership tie here, this might become an impossible task, particularly considering that there will be competing interests over any given case. Take, for example, the case of an environmental activist who wants to present a lawsuit on nature’s behalf against the construction of a dam. Should this person be granted this right, even when local communities close to the future dam site express their agreement with the construction, due to the benefits it would bring?

The expression of principles is a part of any constitution. But that is not going to protect the environment. Instead of creating simple declarations of principles without any legal validity or practical application the members of Ecuador’s Constituent Assembly should have come up with effective mechanisms to protect the environment.

For the moment it is clear that reform will not come from the top. Raul Castro himself declared that there will be no changes in the communist structures governing the island since 1961, and that no political transition will take place. This was reinforced by the election of 77-year old revolutionary leader Jose Ramon Machado to the No. 2 spot - an assurance to the old guard that no new and sudden changes are likely. This is hardly surprising - it is difficult to imagine the gerontocracy that governs Cuba willingly giving up power soon.

However, the key question is not whether internal political transition is imminent. Rather, it is to what extent Raul Castro can maintain a system that is under external pressure, because it has historically based its legitimacy on Fidel’s personal leadership.

In Cuba, communist revolution and Fidel are synonymous. Now, even though Fidel will not disappear completely from the public sphere, he will suddenly not be taking the country’s most important political decisions anymore. Fidel’s departure from the public scene is, therefore, already a substantial breach from the past.

Further, economic conditions have deteriorated tremendously on the island since the demise of the Soviet Union in the early 90s. Moscow was not only Cuba’s main commercial partner, it also used to provide the country with non-negligible military and economic aid. Once that aid stopped Cuban authorities decided to look for alternative sources of dollars, mainly to maintain the country’s education and health infrastructures - considered to be the revolution’s most important achievements. The solution the local authorities found was to open the island’s doors to international tourism investors. This allowed the communist regime to earn much needed dollars to preserve the health and education systems. However it did little to improve the overall socio-economic situation of the majority of Cubans. It is not necessary to be a political scientist to understand that a combination of poor socio-economic conditions and lack of political liberties is the most common factor for regime change.

The good news for Raul Castro and his fellow gerontocrats is that there are no real opposition movements in Cuba. This is thanks mainly to the policy of repression exercised by the government since the beginning of the revolution – there are currently more than 750 political prisoners in the island.

However, in this case the winds of change might come from within: the youngest ranks of the party have started to express their discontent with the way the political and economic situation is being handled by the government. This would have been very unlikely not to say impossible two or three years ago. If divisions deepen it will be harder to continue with the policies of political repressions, and a real opportunity for an organized opposition might arise, along with a new future for Cuba.

It is not my purpose here to explore Mr Chavez’ continued agenda of interference in his neighbors’ internal affairs – given its complexity, this is a topic that should be treated separately. But as a first step it is useful to evaluate to what extent the FARC can be entitled to a legitimate belligerent status.

In intra-State wars four criteria can help determine the legitimate combatancy of armed movements: military command structure, observance of war conventions, political goals, and popular representativeness. To what extent does the FARC meet these criteria? It is true that the FARC is indeed organized along military lines. But on the other three criteria the “People’s Army” falls short.

According to the Just War doctrine, war should be governed by the principle of distinction: i.e. acts of war should be directed towards enemy combatants and not towards non-combatants caught in circumstances they did not create. Contrary to this doctrine, over the last 15 years the FARC has committed unaccountable crimes against civilians in Colombia, indiscriminately using land mines in heavily populated zones, forcing the displacement of entire towns, recruiting underage boys and girls, and carrying out a methodic policy of kidnappings - according to some estimates the FARC currently holds 750 hostages, some of whom have remained captive for more than 10 years.

On political goals, maybe the organization was conceived by its founders as a vehicle to seize power and change social structures in Colombia, as its Marxist postulates imply, and maybe at some point it represented the political and moral views of a non-negligible segment of the Colombian population. Today, however, the FARC lack a coherent political agenda and it is not daring to argue that the organization wages war for economic gain only: it has set up a vast drug-trafficking network through which it collects hundreds of millions of dollars every year. Moreover, the FARC are involved in the traffic of arms and extortion of local entrepreneurs, which are both very profitable activities. According to the BBC, the FARC probably is the richest insurgent group in the world and according to various estimates earns between USD 200-400 million each year from the drug trade.

Finally, it is extremely hard to conceive of the FARC as an organization that represents the views of the Colombian people, after the huge demonstrations that took place last month in the largest cities of Colombia, as millions of citizens showed their contempt for FARC’s policy of violence against civilians. Today, the FARC can hardly be considered to act as moral proxy of the Colombian people, or even a substantial segment of it.

The actions that the FARC has conducted during the last 15 years are those of a terrorist organization, and therefore its members are nothing but criminals. The FARC’s record on the observance of war conventions is very poor, it lacks a genuine political agenda, and it is hardly representative. It cannot be a legitimate belligerent.

Ironically, if the FARC were granted legitimate belligerent status, maybe the Colombian justice system would not be legally entitled to prosecute the organization’s main leaders, but they could then be judged by the International Criminal Court in The Hague for war crimes.

We estimate that the total cost savings resulting from price reductions for patented drugs was approximately US$1.2 billion from 2001 to 2005.

This is the first real study of how much developing countries must spend on patented drugs, and it reveals many interesting observations. For instance, Brazilian generics turns out to be more expensive that those available internationally, resulting in an extra cost of 10%. Simultaneously, patented drugs account for over 80% of total drug costs for the treatment program.

The most interesting observations are however, in where the negotiations work best…

Brazil generally has limited power to threaten to issue compulsory licenses and negotiate prices for drugs when no generics or APIs are available; often no generic competitors exist for several years after Brazil integrates the newest ARVs into treatment guidelines. Brazil’s negotiations have therefore been most successful for ARVs for which generic competition is emerging, including lopinavir/r, efavirenz, and tenofovir, and less so for atazanavir, which does not yet have a WHO-prequalified generic competitor. Two recent examples highlight how generic competition has influenced global prices with direct effects on Brazil. First, in May 2006 Indian generic manufacturer Cipla launched a price of US$700 PPPY for generic tenofovir, which coincided with both Gilead’s 50% price reduction for tenofovir in Brazil and Gilead’s announcement that it would issue voluntary licenses to generic manufacturers to produce tenofovir. Second, emerging competition also likely prompted Abbott’s seven-year US$920 PPPY contract with Brazil for heat-stable lopinavir/r in 2005 and Abbott’s 2007 decision to further lower lopinavir/r prices for 40 more low- and middle-income countries, including Brazil.

…and where the Brazilian model does not work so well:

While Brazil’s model has been highly effective in lowering prices for patented ARVs, middle-income countries without domestic pharmaceutical industries or public drug production capacity have less power than Brazil to negotiate prices for patented drugs and may choose not to take the international political risks associated with issuing compulsory licenses. Moreover, even if other middle-income countries opt to issue compulsory licenses, importing generics may be cheaper and more feasible than producing drugs locally. Our cost findings may be less relevant to low-income countries, which typically enjoy the lowest global prices for patented ARVs but often do not integrate the most costly ARVs into treatment guidelines.

Brazil’s model has affected ARV prices around the globe. First, Brazil’s model set an important precedent for price negotiations and tiered pricing schemes for other developing countries. Second, Brazil’s treatment policies have helped create a market for generic ARVs; in turn, generic competition has facilitated Brazil’s price negotiations and lowered global ARV prices. Third, other countries have also used compulsory licenses in order to import drugs and reduce drug prices. For example, Thailand issued compulsory licenses for several antiretroviral and cardiovascular drugs in 2006 and 2007, including lopinavir/r and efavirenz, among others. Thailand’s decision to issue compulsory licenses, in turn, fostered greater transparency about global ARV prices and set a new precedent for middle-income countries. Shortly after Thailand issued compulsory licenses, Brazil issued its first compulsory license for Merck’s efavirenz. Additionally, in April 2007, Abbott further lowered its prices for original and heat-stable lopinavir/r from US$2,200 to US$1,000 PPPY in more than 40 lower middle-income and low-income countries (including Brazil and Thailand) and to US$500 for nine additional low-income countries outside sub-Saharan Africa

What does this mean for India?

What this seems to suggest is simple - compulsory licenses are a good thing for governments. They shift the balance of power somewhat towards the buyer (government) from the seller (big pharma). Of course, they should be used only sparingly, but just enough to make future threats credible. And the existence of a strong domestic generic industry helps the process by making the threat even more credible.

India, it would seem, is ideally suited to adopt this strategy. It is a large economy with substantial buying power. It also has a healthy generics industry. And it has traditionally had a loose patent regime. So why is it not doing so?

The answer may lie in the aspirations of the Indian pharma industry to become outsources of pharma manufacturing and R&D. Rather than challenge the business model of big pharma, Indian pharma wants to keep the model, and replace the players. Essentially, much of Indian pharma wants to be big pharma.

This was evident, as I noted previously, from a survey of the pharma industry after 2005 (when a new patent regime came into place). It noted that the Indian pharma industry has focused private R&D investment towards treating the diseases of the rich world. This may be good for parts of the Indian pharma industry, but is hardly as good for India’s public health priorities.