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TWN Info Service
on Intellectual Property Issues (Nov21/06) CSOs sharply criticize
Walker process on WTO's response to pandemic Geneva, 24 Nov (Kanaga Raja) - Over 80 civil society organizations (CSOs) including global health, development, and human rights groups as well as global trade union federations have severely criticized the so-called "Walker process" on the WTO's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, as a "cynical scheme" to distract from the failure of the World Trade Organization to mount the required response to the ongoing pandemic. In an open letter to WTO Director-General Ms Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and all WTO Members, the CSOs urgently called on WTO Members to engage in a "course correction". This entailed agreeing immediately to the TRIPS waiver as proposed; halting "the sham Walker process" on further trade liberalization and imposition of regulatory constraints and instead focusing on real solutions; focusing WTO reform efforts on removing barriers to development; halting all "Green Room" processes; ensuring full access to participation by all WTO Members to all negotiations; and restoring at least the very minimum levels of participation of civil society to the WTO's 12th Ministerial Conference (MC12), which is set to begin in Geneva on 30 November. Among the international and regional networks that signed onto the CSO letter are Amnesty International; Arab NGO Network for Development (ANND); DAWN (Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era); the European Attac Network; Focus on the Global South; Health Action International-Asia Pacific (HAIAP); Othernews; Oxfam International; Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG); People's Vaccine Alliance (PVA, a coalition of organizations including UNAIDS, health NGOs and global trade union federations); Peoples Health Movement (PHM); Society for International Development (SID); and the Third World Network (TWN), including Third World Network-Africa (TWN-Africa). A host of national organizations also signed onto the CSO letter. "New Zealand's Ambassador David Walker is facilitating a broader Covid-19 recovery plan that has become skewed towards the interests of richer countries, especially the "Ottawa Group" that includes New Zealand," said Professor Jane Kelsey of the University of Auckland, New Zealand. "Reports from Geneva show the so-called "Walker process" has become a Trojan Horse to introduce a raft of new obligations through the back door. Least-developed and developing countries, and their priorities, have effectively been excluded," she added. "Without a meaningful TRIPS waiver, there cannot be a meaningful WTO response to the pandemic. This is recognized and reiterated by a broad base of WTO developing and least developed Members but their calls have been repeatedly ignored," said Sangeeta Shashikant of the Third World Network, a signatory to the CSO letter. "Instead, Ambassador Walker set up a process that keeps the majority of WTO Members outside the negotiation room and is using multiple pressure tactics to push through his agenda and that of countries that want to use the pandemic to repackage old liberalization and de-regulatory wishes," she said. "Their attempts to set up a future work plan and new body on the WTO response to the pandemic, based on the same premises, is only promising more of these tactics to continue post the 12th Ministerial Conference and could in effect bring an end to any remaining hopes that the WTO could deliver to developing countries and LDCs on any developmental elements, such as in agriculture and special and differential treatment, promised back in 2001 (i.e. WTO Doha Development Agenda)," Shashikant added. "It is deeply disturbing that the proposed text unilaterally tabled by Ambassador Walker of New Zealand on WTO response to the COVID-19 pandemic does not address the proposed temporary TRIPS waiver proposed by India and South Africa and supported by over 100 WTO members," said Ann Harrison, a Senior Advocate at Amnesty International, also a signatory to the CSO letter. "No credible WTO response to ending the pandemic can exclude the immediate agreement to the proposed waiver. Had the waiver been agreed when it was first introduced over a year ago, additional manufacturing capacity for critical Covid-19 tools would now be in place. WTO members should not allow themselves to be distracted by the "Walker Process", which will not fulfil states' human rights obligations in relation to ensuring human rights through international cooperation and assistance, including the rights to life, health, and non-discrimination," she added. "Instead, we call for those states blocking the TRIPS waiver - notably the European Commission, the UK, Norway and Switzerland - to drop their opposition and to allow the waiver to be agreed. As has been demonstrated in a recent legal opinion endorsed by our Secretary-General, states that are party to the ICESCR [International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights] must not oppose the waiver in order to comply with their human rights obligations," said Harrison. "The Walker process is a sham: one that shows the WTO is allowing itself to be held hostage by Germany and EU. It is unconscionable that even after 17 million people have died from Covid-19, the WTO is still beholden to big pharma monopolies - instead of driving home the delivery of the comprehensive TRIPS waiver that the majority of its members demand," said Max Lawson, co-Chair of the People's Vaccine Alliance, an international coalition working to end the pandemic. "In the rich history of cynical WTO efforts to evade accountability for the damage WTO rules have wrought, this effort by the few countries that oppose a WTO waiver to issue a "Trade and Health" Declaration is especially disgusting given this would not improve access to the medicines needed to end the pandemic, and instead is about trying to cover up the grim reality that WTO rules are prolonging death and economic devastation," said Lori Wallach, Director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch. "Time has long passed for WTO declarations about trade and health, the cynical misdirect of the so-called "Walker Process," or any other attempted PR stunts aimed at protecting the WTO's reputation rather than saving lives and ending the pandemic," Wallach added. CSO LETTER TO WTO DG & WTO MEMBERS In their letter to the WTO DG as well as all WTO Members, the CSOs underlined that the absence of a meaningful outcome on the TRIPS waiver means that the WTO has failed to mount the required response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic that continues to devastate countries socially and economically. They said intellectual property rules - enforced by the WTO's TRIPS Agreement - are key barriers to containing the COVID-19 pandemic. "They confer monopolies, hinder the freedom to operate, and the scaling up of production, directly contributing to inequitable access around the world but especially in developing and least developed countries," said the CSOs. The TRIPS waiver proposal (IP/C/W/669/Rev.1) was submitted in October 2020 and has been supported since by the majority of WTO Members, international organizations (e.g. the WHO, UNAIDS, UNITAID, and UNCTAD), world leaders, faith leaders, civil society, parliamentarians and trade unions, the CSOs noted. "This proposal which calls for a waiver from certain provisions of the WTO TRIPS Agreement (with respect to patents, protection of undisclosed information, copyright and industrial designs) is globally viewed as being central to any effective WTO response to COVID-19 and to achieving equitable access," they emphasized. Despite the significance of the TRIPS waiver proposal, and after more than one year of intense discussion, there does not seem to be much progress towards a meaningful outcome, said the CSO letter. "Instead, scandalously, the General Council Chair Dacio Castillo unilaterally selected Ambassador Walker of New Zealand to chair discussions on a declaration titled "WTO response to the COVID-19 pandemic". Ambassador Walker also unilaterally tabled a proposed text which is clearly not designed to resolve the pandemic," it added. "Rather, the draft text promotes the same liberalization demands made by developed countries in various fora and interventions that will further constrain regulatory space and policy tools available to WTO Members, while further entrenching corporate influence in the institution, drastically undermining the Member-driven character of WTO as mandated in the Marrakesh Agreement," said the CSOs. Walker's text also calls on WTO Members to establish a "Work Plan on Pandemic Preparedness and Resilience" that will carry the work post-MC12 on the WTO response to the COVID-19 pandemic and potentially other future crises, they pointed out. "However, the main intent of this work plan appears to be to push the liberalization and de-regulatory interests of developed countries and undermine existing mandates including the Doha mandate of 2001, which has multiple issues of interest to developing countries that were never delivered." Notably, the Walker process specifically excludes discussion on the most important topic: the TRIPS waiver, said the CSOs. "The reality is that the Walker process is a deplorable attempt by the WTO to cover up what should be a grave humiliation: its inability to agree to remove key obstacles to resolving the COVID-19 pandemic by waiving intellectual property barriers as per the TRIPS waiver proposal. Millions of people have died because of the WTO's vaccine apartheid and inequitable access," they added. "The WTO's response to the pandemic, thus, must be understood as attempting to ensure that the global pandemic not interfere with corporate desires to maintain profits even at the expense of lives and livelihoods globally." Instead, the CSOs called on governments and the WTO to ensure that trade rules do not hinder the global effort to end the pandemic and achieve global public health. The CSOs said that another process that they are concerned about is the push for establishing a new working group on WTO reform. The CSO letter noted that developing countries and many civil society campaigns have long called for reform of the multilateral trading system in favour of developing countries and large vulnerable constituencies such as small farmers, producers, workers, patient groups and indigenous peoples. However, it said, it is clear from their propositions that developed countries are attempting to undermine the core fundamentals of the WTO's mandate as a multilateral institution and alter decision-making procedures. "Instead, they wish to normalize the "Joint Statement Initiatives (JSIs)" launched at the Buenos Aires Ministerial and henceforward, which will undermine the multilateral nature of the organization and its ability to deliver anything useful for developing countries and LDCs." They also attack developing country self-designation, a key legal principle of the WTO, thus eventually limiting the availability of special and differential treatment to many developing countries and LDCs, said the CSO letter. "The reform narrative is also being utilized by some developed countries to inject into the WTO agenda issues that will further constrain the policy tools available to developing countries and open up more space for big business to influence the WTO agenda," it added. The CSOs said they are gravely concerned with the further marginalization of existing multilateral mandates for negotiations, such as the overdue Doha Development mandate, in particular to strengthen special and differential treatment flexibilities and make them more precise, effective and operational; deliver an expedited solution on cotton; and public stockholding for food security purposes, amongst other mandated issues. "These attempts seem to seek to further entrench the WTO as a power-based rather than rules-based organization," they emphasized. "Different preparatory processes towards MC12 are being convened in a way that excludes the vast majority of WTO Members, while over-privileging the participation of developed country members. Exclusionary "Green Room" processes should be anathema to WTO Members and must be eliminated," the CSOs underlined. "In addition, for the first time at a Ministerial Conference, the WTO Secretariat is drastically restricting the very minimal access that is allowed to civil society organizations (CSOs) and has even gone so far as to abolish the very tiny provision of facilities at the NGO center," they said.
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