"This would encourage the use of clean technologies and significantly impact the realisation of sustainable development goals," Indian delegate and MP Rahul Gandhi told a United Nations committee on Wednesday.
He pointed out that due to globalisation external factors are contributing to the success or failure of the developing countries to a greater extent than before.
"Developing countries are caught between intellectual property rights and trade regimes as well conditionalities imposed by the World Bank and IMF, all of which erode their autonomy and flexibility to evolve policies and strategies for their economic growth and sustainable development which is critical to eradicating poverty and achieving Millennium Development Goals," he said.
He told delegates that the controversial intellectual property rights regimes must represent the tradeoff between innovation and wider human societal imperatives.
"We need to revisit the IPRs regimes to ensure that technologies necessary for pursuing the global imperatives of sustainable development are placed in the limited public domain and made accessible to the developing nations," he said. India, he said, recognises the importance of conservation, protection and sustainable use of genetic resources.
"It is particularly significant for developing countries that there be an international regime to protect and safeguard the equitable sharing of benefits arising from use of genetic resources and traditional knowledge."
Gandhi, who is in United Nations as a part of the Indian delegation to the United Nations for last one week, has been spending most of his time attending meetings of various committees, interacting with ambassadors and delegates to get the flavour of the way the world body works and have first hand look at diplomatic maneuvering.
Expressing concern over impasse in the Doha round of trade negotiations, he criticised the rich countries for not keeping their promise to phase out "trade distorting" agricultural subsidies within a given definite time-frame when agriculture was brought into multinational negotiations.
As a result, he said, the gains expected to accrue to the developing countries from agricultural reform by developed countries continue to elude the poor. "Minimising the vulnerability of poor farmers must be our collective priority. Reducing agricultural tariff and subsidies is not enough: there must be exceptions to allow developing countries more space to pursue their pro-development strategies and polices aimed at protecting their poor," he said.
Stressing the need for environment protection, Gandhi said that India has actively participated in shaping international agreements to tackle major global environmental issues.
"In 1972, at the United Nations International Conference on Human environment in Stockholm, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi emphasised that environmental concerns cannot be viewed in isolation from development imperative," he recalled, adding that 20 years later, the Rio Conference affirmed the importance of sustainable development.
