Eli Lilly’s ISDS Patent Claim against Canada Defeated

By Brook K. Baker | Guest Blog | April 6, 2017

In an unprecedented case, Eli Lilly initiated an amended investor-state-dispute-settlement (ISDS) claim against the government of Canada in 2013 after Canada’s highest courts upheld invalidations on new therapeutic use patents for two chemical compounds – olanzapine and atomoxetine, the active pharmaceutical ingredients of Strattera and Zyprexa respectively. The courts had ruled that Canada’s well established “promise utility doctrine” was not satisfied because the evidence provided by Eli Lilly at the time of its patent applications did not support the…

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Gambling with People’s Future?

By Myriam Vander Stichele | Guest Blog | March 27, 2017

The health spa and casino complex in Baden-Baden in Germany was the venue for two-day meeting of G20 finance ministers and central bank governors held on 17 and 18 March. Baden-Baden is better known as a luxurious spa town with expensive shops and Konditoreien (pastry shops), where rich Russians and others like to spend their (laundered or tax evaded) money. However, the G20 ministers and governors did not come to clean up the place, although that could have easily been…

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Assessing the GDP Estimates in the Light of Demonetisation

By Biswajit Dhar and K.S. Chalapati Rao | Guest Blog | March 14, 2017

The Second Advance Estimates of National Income, 2016-17 produced by the Central Statistical Office (CSO) show that demonetisation has had no impact on the country’s economic growth. According to the CSO, Indian economy grew by a healthy 7% in the third quarter of the current financial year, quite contrary to even the expectations of even the Finance Ministry. The Economic Survey had observed, “demonetisation has had short-term costs”, which “real and significant”, and added that the costs would be…

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Embedding Human Rights into Corporate Tax Planning

By Alfred de Zayas | Guest Blog | November 17, 2016

My  2016 report to the UN General Assembly (A/71/286) on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order is devoted to tax evasion, tax fraud and tax havens. In this report, I recall that the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights do not contain any provision concerning the obligation of businesses to pay their fair share of taxes. There is no mention of tax evasion, tax fraud or tax havens. Nor is there any mention in…

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Private Greed vs. Public Interest: A Personal Account of the Healthcare Services in New Delhi

By Biswajit Dhar | Guest Blog | October 18, 2016

Plenty has been written on the state of the health services in the nation’s capital, both in popular press and academic reports, and many of these have also spoken of the suffering that a common woman/man has to undergo in the city’s hospitals and nursing homes. Unfortunately, these news stories and reports have ceased to appeal to the consciousness of their readers, especially the policy and law makers who have not only made this city their home, but also…

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