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TWN Info Service
on Intellectual Property Issues (May21/04) WTO members welcome
US decision on TRIPS waiver Washington DC, 7 May (D. Ravi Kanth) - Many members, at the WTO's General Council meeting on 5 May, welcomed the Biden-Harris administration's decision to support a short-term TRIPS waiver to combat the COVID-19 pandemic and to participate in text-based negotiations, SUNS has learned. Apparently, Germany appears to have decided to block text-based negotiations, while the other opponents to the TRIPS waiver merely said that they took note of the Biden-Harris administration's decision. Surprisingly, the WTO Director-General Ms Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala put out a statement outside the General Council (GC) meeting on the WTO's website on 6 May welcoming the US Trade Representative (USTR) Ambassador Katherine Tai's statement. Ms Okonjo-Iweala said, "I read with interest the statement made yesterday by USTR Katherine Tai and I warmly welcome her willingness to engage with proponents of a temporary waiver of the TRIPS Agreement to help in combating the COVID-19 pandemic." She went on to say that in her GC statement on Wednesday, "we need to respond urgently to COVID-19 because the world is watching and people are dying." She said she is pleased that "the proponents are preparing a revision to their proposal and I urge them to put this on the table as soon as possible so that text-based negotiations can commence." "It is only by sitting down together that we will find a pragmatic way forward - acceptable to all members - which enhances developing countries' access to vaccines while protecting and sustaining the research and innovation so vital to the production of these life-saving vaccines." Meanwhile, in an interview with the Washington Post on 6 May, the DG said that "it's not overnight that we're going to be able to scale up." "It is very difficult to say now whether there is going to be a consensus, but I think they will be able to come to some pragmatic agreement that will give both sides the necessary comfort that they need," the DG said. The Post observed that "even with the support of the United States, a major victory for the developing world, a deal is far from a guarantee, as any one of the 164 member nations could torpedo the effort." New Zealand's trade envoy Ambassador David Walker said his minister had announced that they would participate in the text-based negotiations following President Biden's decision to arrive at a common waiver. Trade envoys from South Africa, India, and several other countries welcomed Washington's decision, saying that it is a major decision to accelerate text-based negotiations. India urged the opponents to the TRIPS waiver to join the text-based negotiations. But a handful of the opponents to the waiver seemed somewhat perplexed by Washington's decision to participate in text-based negotiations. The European Union and the United Kingdom merely said that they took note of Washington's decision on supporting a temporary waiver. USTR Katherine Tai on 6 May discussed the pandemic and the proposed waiver with Pakistan's Minister of Commerce Abdul Razak Dawood. Ms. Tai reiterated that "the Biden-Harris Administration's top priority is saving lives and ending the pandemic in the United States and around the world and the expansion of vaccines production and distribution for developing countries," according to a readout from her office.
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