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TWN
Info Service on WTO and Trade Issues (Mar24/11) Abu Dhabi, 4 Mar (D. Ravi Kanth) — A group of developing countries led by Colombia brought their protests to the centre-stage on issues arising from intellectual property (IP) barriers at the World Trade Organization’s 13th ministerial conference (MC13) that concluded on 2 March amidst chaos, said delegates familiar with the development. At the meeting, the 65 co-sponsors of the TRIPS waiver showed how the WTO lost its “human face” by failing to extend the MC12 Ministerial Decision on the TRIPS Agreement to COVID-19 diagnostics and therapeutics. Further, for not including the issue of IP as part of the WTO’s future work program, four countries pressed for a Review of the TRIPS Agreement plus the Convention on Biological Diversity, and transfer of technology. In their declaration issued at the meeting, Colombia, India, Egypt, and Bangladesh urged the WTO’s TRIPS Council to expedite “ongoing work to examine the relationship between the TRIPS Agreement and the Convention on Biological Diversity, and the protection of traditional knowledge and folklore”, as mandated under paragraph 19 of the Doha work program. The four countries asked the TRIPS Council “to examine the TRIPS Agreement, the Doha Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health of 2001 and the Ministerial Decision on the TRIPS Agreement of 2022, to review and build on the lessons learned during COVID-19, with the aim to address the concerns of developing countries including LDCs in the context of health emergencies including pandemic.” Lastly, in their declaration, the four countries said “the TRIPS Council shall be guided by the objectives and principles set out in Articles 7 and 8 of the TRIPS Agreement and shall take fully into account the development dimension and shall provide a report on the progress made, including any recommendations, to the Ministers at the 14th Ministerial Conference.” TRADE-RELATED ENVIRONMENTAL MEASURES In another significant declaration, Argentina, Bangladesh, Barbados, Bolivia, Brazil, Cabo Verde, Colombia, Ecuador, Egypt, Honduras, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, South Africa, Uruguay, Venezuela, and the African Group called on “all Members to refrain from imposing unilateral trade-related environmental measures that create unnecessary obstacles to trade or arbitrary or unjustifiable discrimination between countries.” Without mentioning the European Union and the United States, the two main promoters of unilateral trade- related environmental measures, the large group of countries called for “enhanced transparency of trade-related environmental measures applied by Members.” The signatories said that WTO members should “intensify our collective work in the Committee on Trade and Environment to analyse the key principles of international environmental law that are relevant to the design and implementation of trade-related environmental measures, with the aim of enhancing coherence and mutual supportiveness between international environmental regimes and trade regimes in the design and implementation of trade-related environmental measures.” +
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