Hours ahead of the World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting that starts on Sunday, a flurry of representations are being made by pro-health groups, campaigning for the temporary waiver of intellectual property (IP) on Covid-19 technologies — vaccines, treatments and diagnostics.
They are against the “restrictive” criteria of an alternative agreement that is presently being discussed at the WTO. Incidentally, Big pharma too is not happy with the “leaked text” from this alternative agreement, although they are not for an IP waiver, to start with.
It is against this backdrop that the WTO’s 12 Ministerial Conference (June 12 -15) gets underway. India and South Africa were the key architects of the IP waiver proposal at the WTO, October 2020.
In the last 20 months, a consensus has eluded WTO members, despite 100 countries supporting the IP waiver – that would allow quicker access to new Covid technologies by sharing technology and relaxing barriers on local production.
In a letter to South African President Cyril M Ramaphosa, trade unions of public services’ workers in Africa expressed concern on the draft text tabled by the WTO Director General, last month. “The DG’s text mainly reflects the flawed positions of the EU (European Union) and US and fails to deliver the legal tools and freedom to operate for governments and manufacturers to expand supply of Covid-19 vaccines,” said the letter from Public Services International, representing similar organisations from the region.
Further, the letter states that the draft added “conditions and obligations to use of existing flexibilities to the TRIPS agreement and would create more entry barriers for local manufacturers and complicate operations of the mRNA Hub, thereby further hindering equitable access.”
Doha Declaration reversal
Another representation warns that the Doha Declaration, historic for prioritising public heath, could be in danger of reversal, due to the latest text under negotiation. This warning comes from Ruth Dreifuss, former President of the Swiss Confederation, Celso Amorim, two-time Brazilian Minister of Defence and Foreign Affairs (said to be one of the central figures in negotiating the Doha declaration), and Dr Jorge Bermudez, a gobal health expert on medicineaccess issues.
“During the height of the HIV crisis, WTO members responded with the Doha Declaration, which stated that “the TRIPS Agreement does not and should not prevent Members from taking measures to protect public health”. Without amendments, the current text under negotiation at the WTO is a reversal of the Doha declaration,” says the letter addressed to the WTO delegates. The latest negotiations undermined flexibilities in the TRIPS agreement that WTO members had committed to in 2001, the letter said, and “any agreement that adds new barriers could set a dangerous precedent for future pandemics.”
In its statement, humanitarian organisation Medecins Sans Frontieres cautioned, the leaked draft was “far from the IP Waiver for COVID medical tools that the world needs and may end up setting a negative precedent, including by backsliding on public health safeguards that are currently enshrined in global trade rules.”
Not business as usual
At the other end of the spectrum, the biopharmaceutical industry represented by IFPMA (International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations) reiterated: “we are still of the view that weakening the intellectual property (IP) framework as proposed in the “Quad compromise” is unnecessary and harmful to innovation.” It was “business NOT (sic) as usual”, they said, pointing out that the first and fastest vaccine was available in 326 days.
“”The TRIPS waiver discussion lacks evidence and the IP framework has fallen victim of political posturing,” the IFPMA said, urging WTO members to “keep in mind that weakening the IP framework will jeopardise global health security.”
The better approach would be, to focus on the challenges to Covid-19 vaccine access “including removing trade barriers, addressing distribution challenges, strengthening healthcare systems, and partnering to drive innovation and access,” they pointed out.
Published on
June 11, 2022