writing a paper on pharmaceutical patents in china (yes, pressed for time), and I came across this–the type of story that gets me all into intellectual property again.
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2 August 2007
I’m kinda confused why HRW is doing this. I suppose it’s a way to capitalize on the publicity of a high-profile person, but it makes the organization look cheap. 20 April 2007 the topic of today’s governance & law class was “monitoring government processes” (ie, ombudsmen, commissions of inquiry, judicial review, etc.). there is currently no human rights commission in HK, so our prof was suggesting that perhaps we could expand the powers of the (independent) ombudsman, so as to have a supervisory role with respect to human rights issues. (kind of an interesting way to create a pseudo-HR commission, since apparently there would not be enough political support to establish a HR commission on its own.) one comment from a student that made me nearly livid: “I don’t really think we need a human rights commission in Hong Kong, since we do not have as much of a problem with human rights violations as in other jurisdictions…” my hand shot up right away, but thankfully (for that student) the professor made an adequately long (although tempered) rebuke of that statement, referring to the need for legal protections for minorities. so I left it at that. but I find it unbelievable that an upper-year law student could possibly think that Hong Kong is some magical city with few human rights violations. it then occurred to me that, being a member of the (98% ethnic) majority, he must have a completely different perspective from what I am used to (though I would hardly say that I needed to be a minority in Canada to realize that human rights violations occur all the time). can someone be that oblivious to how disadvantageous it can be as a minority? how can someone honestly not notice the thousands of filipinas and indonesians that fill hong kong island on sundays, the one day that domestic workers get off a week? what about the various TV ads on the bus explaining that we are legally obligated to pay the minimum allowable wage (MAW) to these workers (currently set at a paltry HKD$3400 per month, and of course difficult to enforce). there is no other minimum wage legislation in HK (milton friedman’s favourite capitalist society)–and amazingly for breaches of the MAW, it is the worker that can be barred from ever working in HK again. unfortunately it is this gov & law class–my only undergraduate law course–that has coloured my impression of students at HKU, and in hong kong in general. this is supposed to be the best university in HK, but from the quality of the students… it clearly doesn’t show. (to be fair, I cannot complain about the students in my grad courses, nor about the professors, since they do seem to be more open-minded. but then most of these people have lived or studied abroad.) [end rant] 18 April 2007 I went on a trip to legco (as everyone here likes to call it) today, organized by the office of international student exchange–and a grand total of 6 of us showed up. I was surprised that I actually knew some of the topics being discussed. Session started at 11 AM with the Patents Amendment Bill–proposing TRIPS-compliant modifications that would allow the government to manufacture drugs off-patent in cases of public health emergencies (precisely what I wrote my patent theory paper on). The payment that the patent owner would receive in cases of compulsory licensing will apparently be decided on an ad hoc basis, but interestingly capped at a maximum of 4% of the price of the drug. the comprehensive social security assistance (CSSA) scheme was also on the agenda, a topic which I had looked into briefly for one of my classes here. was surprised to learn that a “4-P” family (presumably 4-person? not sure) is supposed to be able to live on HKD$9000 per month. our group stayed until 12.30, when we had to catch our bus back. a bit more than half the number of council members were actually in session today, though it was kinda hard to say as people were trickling in and out… the organizer of our trip–a british expat who has lived here over 30 years–pointed out Martin Lee, who was quite vocal about being pro-democracy before the 1997 takeover–and also Audrey Eu, who she thought was another “good liberal” (apparently meaning not radical, which she attributed to Eu’s legal background). unfortunately “long-hair” Leung Kwok-Hung was not there today. another thing I didn’t get to hear were the “questions for written replies”–though they were listed on the agenda, including the following hot topic addressed to the Secretary for Constitutional Affairs:
23 December 2006 I was cleaning out my room for my impending trip to HK (during which I’m subletting my room), when I found a booklet by Ian Pilarczyk called A Noble Roster: One Hundred and Fifty Years of Law at McGill. it’s… uh… interesting to see what some of the current profs have to say about their student years at McGill. (be forewarned, this will not be very interesting unless you know these people) Dean Nicholas Kasirer Student: Is the photocopier working? Professor Richard Janda We had some difficulties in initially producing the paper. At the time AES word processing stations were the latest in high-technology, and the Faculty had acquired a few. We lobbied the Dean, John Brierley, for access to a workstation after hours, which eventually he allowed. I was one of the lucky people who always ended up typing the paper the night before it went to the printers. Whenever I would be working on the paper, around midnight or one o’clock–lo and behold!–Professor Blaine Baker would wander into the office. It was rather nice to have the company, although I wondered why he didn’t have better things to do. It also occurred to me that his visits were regular, but as he always attended all student events I assumed this was an extension of his support for student activities. It was only years later that I came to know that he had been given a kind of “police function” by the Dean to ensure that there was no tampering with student records, and he became the transaction cost for the arrangement with the Quid and the Dean’s office. The untold story is therefore that the Quid would not have appeared without Blaine Baker’s policing. Professor David Lametti Also during my third year, we were still in the early stages of the “law partners” programme, which I think was about two years old. I was asked by the coordinator, John Relton, to participate but I told him I was too busy to participate that year, and he initially respected my decision. Two weeks into the semester he approached me and told me that they didn’t have enough people and that I absolutely had to be a law partner and wouldn’t take no for an answer. It ended up that I was paired up with a woman. It so happens that at the time the programme was structured so that men were paired with men and women with women. The woman I was paired with was Geneviève Saumier, now a professor at McGill. By Christmas time we were a couple. [...] Geneviève and I were married in 1994 in Montreal, with a reception in the Common Room as well as at the Faculty Club. |
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