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TWN
Info Service on WTO and Trade Issues (Mar24/06) Abu Dhabi, 1 Mar (D. Ravi Kanth) — The World Trade Organization’s 13th ministerial conference (MC13) in Abu Dhabi on day four seemingly failed to show a “human face”, after it failed to deliver on COVID-19 diagnostics and therapeutics as agreed at MC12 in Geneva. “The WTO failed to deliver a comprehensive multilateral solution on the pandemic and even when it delivered on COVID-19 vaccines, this was too little, too late,” said the 65 co-sponsors of the original TRIPS waiver proposal in a statement expected to be issued on 1 March. The co-sponsors, led by India and South Africa, in October 2020 proposed a waiver from implementing certain provisions of the WTO’s TRIPS Agreement for scaling up the production of COVID-19 vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics to address the pandemic. “Rather than heed the call of the co-sponsors, non-proponents advocated for voluntary arrangements and donations as the only solution to equitable distribution,” they argued in their statement. The co-sponsors lamented that “in reality, however, an inconsequentially small number of voluntary licenses were availed with strict conditionalities that did not assist to respond to the global crisis. And there were no voluntary licenses or any licensing arrangements when it came to the most-used vaccines in developed countries.” They cautioned that “the COVID-19 virus is still with us, and the world needs therapeutics and diagnostics to ensure better management of its impact.” “If WTO Members were serious about providing an effective solution in the context of global solidarity, they needed to extend the TRIPS decision to diagnostics and therapeutics within six months as promised,” according to the statement. “However, over a year after the deadline, the non-proponents have stalled any possible outcome, ensuring that the world remains vulnerable not only to this pandemic but future pandemics.” The 65 co-sponsors cautioned that “failure to deliver on a multilateral outcome” to effectively address the growing concerns on “equitable and affordable access to health products, including diagnostics and therapeutics”, casts “a dim light on the ability of the WTO to act in solidarity during an international emergency as recognized by the WHO.” Paragraph eight of the MC12 Ministerial Decision on the TRIPS Agreement mandated that “no later than six months from the date of this Decision, Members will decide on its extension to cover the production and supply of COVID-19 diagnostics and therapeutics.” That deadline ended on 17 December 2022. Despite sustained efforts by the co-sponsors, major industrialized countries with huge pharmaceutical bases like the United States, the European Union, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom among others opposed extending the decision to COVID-19 diagnostics and therapeutics on one ground or the other during the past two years. In an attempt to keep the issue alive for securing the waiver on COVID-19 diagnostics and therapeutics on a future day, the co-sponsors said: “The IP barriers that challenge equitable and affordable access have prolonged this pandemic and remain unaddressed, threatening us in the next pandemic.” The 65 co-sponsors said they “remain committed to addressing these concerns of developing countries including the LDCs in the context of health emergencies such as pandemics by advancing policy space for Members, along with full utilization of existing flexibilities in the TRIPS Agreement including Article 73.” Stressing that the “most solemn obligation of every government is to protect the life and health of its people,” the co-sponsors underscored that the “need for scaled-up access to diagnostics, treatments, vaccines and personal protective equipment (PPE) (“health products”) was manifest.” Explaining the background to their request for a waiver, the co-sponsors said that they approached Members of the World Trade Organization “to temporarily waive certain provisions of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) to support the global COVID-19 pandemic response.” They said the template for the statement shared with some countries suggests that the waiver request “was in recognition that the intellectual property system is meant to provide a balance between providing incentives for bringing about innovation and rewarding creativity and promoting the broader public interest.” The co-sponsors said that “in the area of public health, intellectual property objectives must also be balanced against realising the right to health, of which access to medicines and other health products is a central part.” Further, they said the waiver request sought to address the legal problems posed by monopolies through “disputes on infringement of intellectual property rights even at the height of the pandemic and that health products would be in global short supply drawing from the experience of previous pandemics and health emergencies.” While “pooling financial and scientific resources is the only option for accelerating progress towards new vaccines, treatments and diagnostics,” the co-sponsors said: “Developing countries including the LDCs were gravely concerned. Much of the latest technology used to develop and manufacture necessary health products was owned and controlled by companies, governments and other institutions based in developed countries.” “Without access to this technology, the prospects for manufacturing and distributing health products would be restricted,” the co-sponsors said. They argued that “access to health products would be at the discretion of pharmaceutical companies from a handful of high-income countries.” Referring to the COVID-19 pandemic, which “offered WTO Members an opportunity to act in solidarity by adopting a multilateral solution to help bolster the capability of developing countries to respond to a health crisis,” the co-sponsors advocated for a multilateral solution so as to restore faith in multilateralism and avoid Members adopting self-help measures, thereby fragmenting the intellectual property system, a undesirable outcome that a time-bound and limited waiver could have helped prevent more people from the COVID-19 virus. +
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