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TWN Info
Service on WTO and Trade Issues (Apr21/04) Washington DC, 8 Apr (D. Ravi Kanth) – Notwithstanding the growing calls by many developing countries for text- based negotiations on the proposed TRIPS waiver, the new chair of the TRIPS Council, Ambassador Dagfinn Sorli from Norway, appears to be slowing down the five-month-old talks by asking the proponents of the waiver to prove all over again how intellectual property rights (IPRs) remain a barrier in scaling-up production of vaccines, said people familiar with the development. In an email sent to members on 30 March, a WTO TRIPS division official said the chair wants to convene “small group consultations to discuss individual aspects of the TRIPS waiver request in an informal setting.” During the first session of the upcoming consultations on 12 April, the chair wants delegations to focus on “examples of IPR- related challenges, including in using TRIPS flexibilities,” implying that the proponents must demonstrate how IPRs are barriers for the containment, prevention, and treatment of COVID-19, said people, who asked not to be quoted. At the scheduled second session on 13 April, the chair wants members to focus on issues related to the “operation (or implementation) of the proposed waiver”, a question that has been raised by the opponents to the TRIPS waiver such as the United States, the European Union, Switzerland, Japan, Canada, Norway, and Brazil among others, said people familiar with the chair’s email. The email further stressed that “the discussions at these consultations should take account of the questions and responses already provided in documents IP/C/W/671, 673, 674; other material provided in documents IP/C/W/670 and 672; as well as in subsequent TRIPS Council discussions.” While IP/C/W/670 provides a graphic account of examples of IP issues and barriers in combating the COVID-19 pandemic, IP/C/W/671 includes questions on IP challenges experienced by members in relation to COVID-19. Significantly, in the 30-page document IP/C/W/672, the proponents of the TRIPS waiver had answered all the questions raised by the opponents. In the 12-page document IP/C/W/673, the proponents further offered evidence on IP challenges experienced by WTO members in relation to COVID-19. Meanwhile, in the three-page document IP/C/W/674, the proponents had asked the opponents to answer questions about specific IP issues. The WTO Secretariat official further noted that “rather than repeating what has already been said, these small group consultations are intended to build on this material and permit Members to pursue specific issues that they consider unresolved, and how best to resolve them.” In his email to members on 30 March, the chair proposed “informal consultations in various formats before reporting to the wide membership and continuing discussions in open-ended meetings,” including an open-ended informal meeting of the TRIPS Council on 22 April followed by a formal TRIPS Council meeting on 30 April. The chair’s intention to ask the proponents to justify how IPRs are a barrier and how the waiver will be implemented appears to be a clear attempt to drag on the discussions on the TRIPS waiver and undermine an early decision, according to the people with the development. DEMAND FOR TEXT-BASED NEGOTIATIONS Ideally, the chair ought to have started the text-based negotiations on the TRIPS waiver, as being demanded by many developing countries at the WTO and supported by over 400 international civil society groups and several prominent US Congressmen. During the 10-11 March TRIPS Council meeting, the 58 co-sponsors of the TRIPS Waiver proposal, the ACP (Africa, Caribbean, and Pacific) and other developing countries called for text-based discussions as the way to move forward with the discussions, without being tied up in a continuous evidentiary loop. In past TRIPS Council meetings Norway has also stressed on a revised proposal by the co-sponsors for further consideration, but such a move is meaningless if Norway now as the chair fails to convene text-based negotiations. More recently it has emerged that Norway may actually be a fierce critic of the TRIPS waiver proposal alongside the US, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Japan, Australia, Canada, Switzerland and Singapore. In response to a letter dated 16 February from civil society from the Global South, Norway’s Prime Minister Ms Erna Solberg wrote on 25 March that “in Norway’s view, the scope of the proposed TRIPS waiver is broad, and the effects will be uncertain …,” a statement that appears to reflect that Norway has already made up its mind to oppose the waiver. The Norwegian prime minister said that “the discussions in the WTO since last October have shed more light on the potential impacts and implications of such a waiver,” which seems totally incorrect as the opponents to the TRIPS waiver have adopted “stonewalling and diversionary” tactics, said people familiar with the development. Invariably, the opponents have resorted to “theological” positions without offering any fact-based evidence which the proponents did painstakingly during the discussions. Prime Minister Solberg’s response has also let “the cat out of the bag” when she writes that “while we believe the discussion should continue, we remain unconvinced that this waiver will result in increased production capacity within a relevant timeframe.” That is what her ambassador is doing in Geneva, namely, to continue discussions endlessly, as the prime minister and he have already made up their mind to obstruct the text-based negotiations and an early outcome, said several people, who asked not to be quoted. The prime minister’s response points to the Access to the COVID-19 Tools Accelerator (ACT-A) and its vaccine pillar Covax as a mechanism to achieve “the rapid development, scaling up of production and equitable distribution of Covid-19 vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics”. The ACT-A Facilitation Council is co-chaired by Norway and South Africa. Her assertions do not measure up in reality. ACT-A has struggled to deliver on equitable access. WHO has suggested that stopping Covid-19 will require at least 70% of the global population of 7.8 billion to have immunity, but Covax is only focused on providing 2.3 billion doses in 2021. As at 8 April, Covax had delivered 38 million doses to 102 economies representing 0.01% of the population of the economies. Strangely, the position adopted by Norway’s prime minister on the TRIPS waiver seems to reflect the same concerns of Big Pharma. In their letter to the Biden-Harris Administration on 10 March, the representatives of Big Pharma mentioned Norway as having opposed the TRIPS waiver along with the US, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Japan, Canada, Switzerland, and Brazil. In their letter, Big Pharma, comprising Pfizer, Moderna, and AstraZeneca among others said the “US government has stood alongside other governments, including the European Union, United Kingdom, Japan, Canada, Switzerland, Brazil, and Norway, to oppose this waiver.” Big Pharma decried the TRIPS waiver proposal, saying that “in requesting the waiver, India and South Africa argued without evidence that the intellectual property is hindering the global response to the pandemic and that the waiver would help scale up research, development, manufacturing and supply of needed products.” In effect, the TRIPS Council chair’s current attempts to force the proponents to answer yet again how IPRs are a barrier and how the waiver will be implemented seems to resonate with the opposition of Big Pharma to the waiver, said people, who preferred not to be quoted. Moreover, on issues involving conflict of interests, the responsible persons overseeing the negotiations ought to recuse themselves in order to generate confidence and trust among the participants, said a former trade envoy, who asked not to be quoted. Against this backdrop, the TRIPS Council chair’s latest move appears to be a clear attempt to slow down the talks, the envoy said. “If the chair is truly proactive, he ought to have started the text-based negotiations, as being demanded by 58 sponsor countries of the waiver and supported by 61 members, where these issues are bound to come up in one form or other,” the envoy said. In a similar vein, the new WTO director-general Ms Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala seems to have taken a rather frosty stand about the TRIPS waiver while reposing confidence in Big Pharma to resolve the issue of vaccines shortages. “I would also like to share with you that I am planning an event in mid-April with vaccine manufacturers from developing and developed countries,” Ms Okonjo-Iweala told members at an informal General Council (GC) meeting on 30 March. “The idea is to move us along on our quest to solve this unacceptable inequitable access of poor countries to vaccines,” she said, knowing full well that the grave shortages and inaccessibility of vaccines in developing and poorest countries is largely due to Big Pharma’s tight control over vaccine technology to maximise profits during and post pandemic. [A Guardian report “From Pfizer to Moderna: who’s making billions from Covid-19 vaccines?” reports that pharmaceutical companies are set to make up to USD 21.5 billion in profits in 2021.] “At the bottom of this is a very serious scarcity in supply … and how to solve it is to look at how we expand manufacturing in all its ways,” the DG said, adding “but we also need to look to the future and agree a framework where countries do not need to stand in the queue in order to get access to live-saving vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics.” At a time when more than 2.8 million people have died worldwide due to COVID-19 and with over 131 million registered cases, it is futile to discuss a future framework while undermining the discussions on the TRIPS waiver and the benefits it could provide immediately to poor countries, said people, who asked not to be quoted. “And, I hope we can come to a good arrangement on both increasing manufacturing volume, looking at the TRIPS Agreement and seeing how and what landing zone we have on that, and agreeing to something that we can take to the ministerial that will be equitable and that will engage with the problems that we have now,” the DG concluded at the GC meeting. For some inexplicable reasons, Ms Okonjo-Iweala did not even mention the ongoing discussions on the TRIPS waiver in her statement at the GC meeting. As the custodian of the 164-member multilateral trade body, it was an “eyesore” to watch the DG turning a blind eye to the TRIPS waiver proposal that is being supported by more than 100 countries at the WTO, said people familiar with the development.+
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