During FY 1988, the Administration intensified its efforts to emphasize U.S. views concerning equity and reciprocity of access to research and training facilities, experimental sites, scientific data and other R&D results. Among the U.S. goals in negotiating bilateral S&T agreements during 1988, was incorporation of specific assurances that intellectual property rights would be protected. U.S. negotiators have been consistently pursuing such provisions, important to creating favorable investment climates and fostering development and application of new technologies through international cooperation.

Supporting Foreign Policy Goals and Improving International
Relations

Bilateral cooperative agreements in science and technology, like many of the multilateral S&T undertakings, play an important role in achieving broad foreign policy objectives. As described in greater detail under the various country and topical headings of this report and in the appendices, S&T exchanges with countries having differing socio-economic systems serve: (1) to advance U.S. science and technology by promoting cooperative scientific research between individual scientists of the partner countries in areas of mutual interest and expertise; (2) to support foreign policy initiatives and objectives of the U.S. by developing and implementing high-quality cooperative research programs conducted on the basis of equality, reciprocity and mutual benefit; and (3) to improve access to the S&T elites of the participating foreign country.

The U.S. technical and foreign affairs agencies possess a huge but limited repertoire of talents and tools for addressing specific S&T problems and opportunities. These resources are made available to address the needs of the Third World through U.S. foreign assistance programs in S&T for development. Project ingredients are combined in many ways, drawing on diverse agencies, including the Departments of Agriculture and Energy, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Department of the Army and its Corps of Engineers, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Public Health Service, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Funded in many cases by the Agency for International Development and its Bureau of Science and Technology for Development, vital programs are being carried out throughout the African continent, and in dozens of other countries in Asia and the western hemisphere. Among the largest AID-sponsored S&T country programs are those in India, Thailand, and Egypt.

Cooperative S&T undertakings also are proving extremely useful in expanding U.S. contacts and improving communications with important elements of society in countries as different as Malaysia, Yugoslavia, Chile and Indonesia. S&T exchanges are a versatile and useful mechanism in support of various foreign policy objectives adapted to our specific program goals in individual partner countries.

Politically sensitive S&T issues, notably in the area of environmental concerns, particularly affect U.S. relations with Canada and Mexico. They include the issue of acid rain with Canada, described elsewhere in this report, pollution of the Niagara River, transboundary movements of hazardous waste, and serious problems of transboundary environmental quality along the U.S.-Mexico border. Significant progress was made on these issues in FY 1988.

Another difficult foreign policy problem was successfully addressed in FY 1988 when the U.S. and 15 South Pacific island countries signed the South Pacific Regional Fisheries

Agreement. It provides access to South Pacific fisheries for the U.S. tuna fishing fleet and resolves a longstanding problem stemming from different juridical positions on highly migratory tuna species.

Considerable progress was made in FY 1988, for example, in implementing and renewing the Presidential Science and Technology initiative with India. The political significance of extensive and still expanding S&T relations between the U.S. and China has been described in previous editions of this report. More recently, S&T relations with Poland and the USSR gained momentum in 1988. In FY 1988, the Administration developed a coordinated U.S. Government policy to reshape our S&T relationship with Japan. The result was the June 20 signing of a new head-of-government agreement. A regional program, funded largely by the Agency for International Development (USAID) and employing S&T projects to achieve development objectives, involves Israeli and Egyptian scientists in cooperative research.

The Administration also pursued its foreign policy goals multilaterally. At the May 1988 Ministerial meeting of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the Ministers endorsed a new framework of common principles for international S&T cooperation. In essence, the framework recognizes that certain elements are central to preserving and maintaining a vibrant international S&T system.

Enhancing Commercial Relations and Establishing
New Trading Partnerships

One of the most important aspects of the Administration's international S&T policy and its implementation during FY 1988 has been an intensive effort to improve the technological competitiveness and global market access of U.S. industry. This effort embraces protection of intellectual property rights and extends to numerous other steps undertaken in bilateral, as well as multilateral, contexts.

U.S. concern with regard to adequate protection of intellectual property rights has grown since 1980, in the contexts of both trade policy and S&T policy. This concern is a natural outgrowth of several legislative actions designed to make better use of research performed in government laboratories or under government contracts. It is a concern addressed in Executive Order 12591 and the Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988.

Examples of ways in which S&T exchanges can benefit U.S. exporters and other U.S. firms can be found wherever state-of-the-art technologies are involved in projects and activities. In some cases, the exchanges promote the sale of U.S. research instrumentation, medical equipment and data processing facilities. Major efforts have been undertaken in telecommunications negotiations to create conditions for the free flow of electronic data across international borders, and there are significant commercial aspects to the Space Station program.

Protecting and Enhancing National Security

The U.S. seeks to enhance the security of the free world by promoting defense S&T cooperation with allies and other

friendly nations while at the same time protecting militarily-critical technology from diversion to potential adversaries. Through sustained cooperation in technology and development, the U.S. improves the effectiveness of its own defenses, increases mutual compatibility of military forces, and strengthens alliances.

Section 1103 of Public Law 99-145 (Nunn Amendment to the FY 1986 Defense Authorization Act) provides funding for the U.S. government to engage in a wide variety of cooperative research and development programs with NATO allies. Over 80 multilateral and bilateral programs are in various stages of negotiation. Similar efforts are underway with numerous non-NATO allies, including Japan, Israel, Egypt, Korea and Australia.

The President's Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) is an important effort to explore a safer and more stable way to keep the peace than the threat of retaliatory attacks on our adversaries.

In March 1985, the U.S. invited 18 nations to participate in the SDI program so that the SDI and western security as a whole could be strengthened by taking advantage of allied excellence in relevant research and development areas. Allied participation in SDI--brought about through technical merit and rigorous competition--is of great benefit to the U.S. as well as to the participating nations. It allows the U.S. to accomplish SDI objectives as quickly as possible with work of the highest quality at the lowest possible cost. Pursuant to our invitation, the U.S. has signed MOUS on participation in SDI cooperation with the United Kingdom (December 1985), the Federal Republic of Germany (March 1986), Israel (May 1986), Italy (September 1986) and Japan (July 1987).

Trends in Science and Technology Cooperation

A trend characteristic of FY 1988 was the consistent and increasingly successful effort made by the Administration to negotiate more sharply focused bilateral and multilateral S&T cooperation agreements containing better balanced benefits to the participating partners. These permit greater access by U.S. researchers to foreign centers of S&T excellence, and reflect more accurately the highest R&D priorities of both the U.S. and its partners. This trend is expected to continue, with the negotiating approach finding widespread application as additional agreements come up for renewal.

Growing international concern about the dimensions and devastating effects of the acquired immune deficiency syndrome led during 1988 to intensification of the worldwide effort to understand, control and, if possible, cure it. The AIDS pandemic is, like a number of other topical key issues of FY 1988, discussed in Chapter 5 of this report.

The year 1988 also saw significant international efforts to address critical conservation issues, including those involving tropical forests, the environmental impacts of projects funded by multilateral development banks, and various other problems of endangered species of flora and fauna. After a decade of negotiations, for example, agreement was finally reached with Canada for the protection of the Porcupine River caribou herd.

Section 5171 of the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988 on symmetrical access to technological research amends Section 502 of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, FY 1979

(22U.S.C. 2656B) to add a new paragraph five. With this paragraph, Congress declares it to be the policy of the United States that (5) Federally supported international science and technology agreements should be negotiated to ensure that (a) intellectual property rights are protected; and (b) access to research and development opportunities and facilities, and the flow of scientific and technological information are, to the maximum extent practicable, equitable and reciprocal."

The act also amends Section 503(B) of the 1979 Foreign Relations Authorization Act (22 U.S.C. 2656C(B) by adding a new paragraph three requiring that the President's annual report to the Congress on science, technology and American diplomacy (the Title V report) contain information and recommendations with respect to "(3) equity of access by United States public and private entities to public (and publicly supported private) research and development opportunities and facilities in each country which is a major trading partner of the United States."

The act further amends Section 503 of the 1979 Foreign relations authorization Act by adding a new subsection providing that "(D) (1) the information and recommendations developed under subsection (B) (3) shall be made available to the United States trade representative for use in his consultations with federal agencies pursuant to executive orders pertaining to the transfer of science and technology." (Comment. Reference to this subsection to executive orders pertaining to the transfer of science and technology thus includes Executive Order 12591 of April 10, 1987 (52 F.R. 13414), on "facilitating access to science and technology.") The conference report on these amendments provides the following background:

United States science and technology policy has traditionally encouraged international access to this nation's public research and development activities and opportunities. The conference agreement is an attempt to encourage other countries to follow the United States example.

Current law (the Stevenson-Wydler Technology Innovation Act of 1980) and Executive Order (Number 12591, issued in April 1987) set the precedent for this section of the conference agreement. Both direct federal laboratories and agencies, in international science and technology negotiations, to consider whether the home countries of foreigners who apply for access to U.S. research and development facilities, offer comparable terms to U.S. nationals.

The conference agreement makes several amendments to Title V of P.L. 95-426 (22 U.S.C. 2656) to ensure that science and technology agreements involving the United States open up foreign research and development activities and opportunities for Americans. The amendments build on existing goals of U.S. international science and technology policy, provide for more information on the United States' access to foreign research and development activities and opportunities, and establish a process to review proposed U.S. international science and technology agreements.

Section 5171 (A) of the conference agreement adds to the declaration of policy in Title V. It states that U.S. federally supported international science and technology agreements should be negotiated to assure proper protection of intellectual property rights to the maximum extent possible and reciprocal and equitable access to foreign scientific and technological opportunities, facilities and information. The

conferees recognize that strict reciprocity may not be a proper measure for ensuring the optimal amount of access inasmuch as the structure and organization of the U.S. scientific and technological enterprise may not mirror that of other nations. For this reason, the conferees encourage policy makers to evaluate the equity and reciprocity of the overall science and technology relationship when measuring and ensuring such access.

The Department of Commerce collects information for the United States Trade Representative (USTR) to identify cases in which the researchers of American companies have been denied access to foreign government supported research and development facilities.

In directing that information on such access be included in the Title V annual report, the conferees intend that such information be readily available to federal agencies and the Congress for use in the implementation and oversight of relevant laws and executive orders governing U.S. access to foreign science and technology facilities and activities.