DOHA, Qatar-Delegates
at the World Trade Organization conference
in Doha were reportedly close to reaching
an agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of
Intellectual Property Rights and Public
Health, according to representatives of
NGOs.. "This is a good first step," said
Celine Charveriat of OXFAM International. "We
have achieved a lot compared to 12 months
ago thanks to mobilization of the North
and South and the fact that developing
countries really stood together."
The
NGO representatives said that a draft, although not
officially released, had been circulated among them.
The draft, a copy of which was obtained by this
paper, contains an adaptation of Option 1 in paragraph
four. This adaptation represents the developing
countries' position more closely than Option 2,
which was submitted by the US and other developed
countries. The language of the draft still has
to be finalized and was only submitted officially
by the working group on TRIPS and Public Health
late evening on Monday. There are still concerns
from NGOs that the language of the draft will not
be strong enough once it is finalized.
"We think that there's a lot of good material
in the draft," said Ellen 't Hoen from Medecins
Sans Frontiers. "Whether it's really strong
or not depends on how paragraph 4 works out. If
the language is "shall" it's a significant
step forward. If they take on ambiguous or weak
language that will not be good for developing countries
or for us."
Paragraph four
now reads: "We agree that
the TRIPS Agreement does not and should not prevent
Members from taking measures to protect public
health. Accordingly, while reiterating our commitment
to the TRIPS Agreement, we affirm that the Agreement
[can and should] [shall] be interpreted and implemented
in a manner supportive of WTO Members' right to
protect public health and, in particular, to ensure
access to medicines for all." A working group
of eight members including, according to OXFAM
representatives, India, the US, Brazil, Zimbabwe
and Kenya, worked on the details of the new draft.
It is an attempt at compromise between the interests
of developing countries and drug-producing countries
such as the US, the United Kingdom and Switzerland,
though pharmaceutical representatives present in
Doha expressed concern that a new TRIPS agreement
could hurt their interests severely.
Paragraph 5(b)
addresses compulsory licenses stating: "Each
Member has the right to grant compulsory licenses
and the freedom to determine the grounds upon which
such licenses are granted." This is the first
time that compulsory licensing has been explicitly
included in the TRIPS Agreement in relation to
Public Health, a fact that is encouraging, according
to NGO representatives.
Charveriat said
that there is still work to be done on the agreement,
but "It is politically
very important that it [TRIPS] was at the top of
the agenda for many days. Looking into the future
we still think there needs to be a substantive
review every two years. We're really pushing for
that." Now delegates and NGOs will look for
reviews of other aspects of the TRIPS agreement,
including those about bio-diversity and bio-piracy.
"We want to make the point that TRIPS is
about more than just medicine," said Sarah
Wright of PressurePoint. "Using terms like
'pandemics' and 'crises' narrows public health.
We want to reaffirm people's right to seeds, clean
water and food security." For now a declaration
on TRIPS and Public Health only contains reference
to medicines, and if it goes through on Tuesday
the WTO will gain back some of the credibility
it lost during the failed Seattle meeting.
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