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TWN Info
Service on WTO and Trade Issues (Mar21/27) Geneva, 30 Mar (D. Ravi Kanth) – Leaders from two dozen countries have called for a global treaty to address future pandemics, instead of tackling the current worsening COVID-19 pandemic that has claimed more than 2.7 million lives with 127 million registered cases globally, a development that seems akin to the proverbial “Nero playing the fiddle while Rome is burning”. Some of the signatories such as the United Kingdom and members of the European Union are currently engulfed in a bitter battle over the supply of vaccines from AstraZeneca. The EU has indicated about imposing export restrictions to block supplies of vaccines to the United Kingdom. More importantly, the EU, the UK, Korea, Japan, and Canada among others have also fiercely opposed the TRIPS waiver proposal at the World Trade Organization that provides an immediate solution to ramp up global production of diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines. The underlying goal of the TRIPS waiver is to temporarily suspend certain provisions in the TRIPS Agreement relating to copyrights, industrial designs, patents, and protection of undisclosed information so as to ensure that the barriers imposed by the international monopoly system of intellectual property rights (IPRs) are removed until the pandemic is brought under control. Several signatories that want a global treaty to address future pandemics have also blocked text-based negotiations at the WTO on the TRIPS waiver proposal. On 29 March, two developments – one by the leaders on a treaty to address future pandemics and another by US business groups opposing the TRIPS waiver proposal – exposed the apparent double standards in tackling the COVID-19 pandemic. According to a news report in the Guardian newspaper on 29 March, titled “Global treaty needed to protect states from pandemics”, leaders from 24 countries, except the United States and China, published a joint article in international newspapers about the need to prepare for a future global pandemic, as “COVID has served as a stark and painful reminder that nobody is safe until everyone is safe.” Incidentally, the TRIPS waiver proposal, which is being co-sponsored by 58 countries with support from 61 other nations at the WTO, is based on the premise of “nobody is safe until everyone is safe” and the need for ramping-up production across countries by temporarily suspending the key provisions in the TRIPS Agreement. In the face of growing “vaccine nationalism” and “vaccine apartheid” policies, the 24 leaders apparently came together to make way for a new era founded on principles like solidarity and cooperation, which they have failed to demonstrate during the last 12 months, according to the Guardian. Acknowledging that the COVID-19 pandemic is “the biggest challenge to the global community since the 1940s,” the leaders suggested that a settlement like the one formed after 1945 is needed to build cross-border cooperation before the next international health crisis, according to the Guardian. “At that time, following the devastation of two world wars, political leaders came together to forge the multilateral system,” the leaders wrote in their joint article. “The aims were clear: to bring countries together, to dispel the temptations of isolationism and nationalism, and to address the challenges that could only be achieved together in the spirit of solidarity and cooperation, namely peace, prosperity, and health and security,” the leaders wrote in the article. In contrast to their bitter divisions and failure to show solidarity and cooperation, the leaders argued that a treaty on pandemics “should lead to more mutual accountability and shared responsibility, transparency and cooperation within the international system and with its rules and norms.” In effect, while hoarding vaccines on an unprecedented scale and denying timely treatment in a large majority of developing countries, the leaders are now espousing international solidarity for future pandemics, said a TRIPS negotiator, who asked not to be quoted. OPPOSITION TO TRIPS WAIVER In the face of growing support for the TRIPS waiver from more than 250 international civil society organizations as well as prominent US Congressmen, a coalition of US business groups on 29 March called on the Biden Administration to reject the proposal being considered at the World Trade Organization to waive drug manufacturers’ intellectual property rights in order to boost developing countries’ access to COVID-19 vaccines. In a letter to the US administration officials, including Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and US Trade Representative Katherine Tai, the business organizations argued that waiving the WTO’s TRIPS Agreement would undermine the global response to the pandemic, according to a report in the Washington Trade Daily on 30 March. The groups argued that countries supporting the TRIPS waiver proposal are using the pandemic “to pursue their longstanding goals to weaken IP rights, including through a problematic proposal at the World Trade Organization to waive IP global protections.” “This waiver is as vague as it is broad, removing patent, industrial designs, copyright, and trade secret protection for any products and services so long as they can be tied to COVID-19,” the groups alleged. The proposed TRIPS waiver “would undermine the global response to COVID-19 and would not achieve its stated goal to rapidly expand vaccines production. The greatest barriers to faster global access to vaccines and therapies are the complex logistical, engineering, and technical challenges of rapidly scaling-up their manufacture. The proposal at the WTO distracts from addressing these manufacturing and logistical issues,” the groups said. “We encourage the Administration to continue to oppose the waiver proposal, and to work with like-minded allies – such as Japan, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Switzerland and Brazil – to engage directly with new WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala to foster a more productive, comprehensive conversation about ensuring equitable access to COVID-19 products by tackling trade barriers,” they added. Earlier, the representatives of Big Pharma wrote to US President Joseph Biden, that the “US government has stood alongside other governments, including the European Union, United Kingdom, Japan, Canada, Switzerland, Brazil, and Norway to oppose this waiver.” “We urge your administration to maintain this longstanding support for innovation and American jobs by continuing to oppose the TRIPS waiver,” said the CEOs of Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), Eli Lilly, Bristol Myers Squibb, Gilead Sciences, Merck, Sanofi, Takeda Pharmaceuticals, Novartis, Abbvie, Bayer AG, Amgen Inc, and Biogen among others. In conclusion, it seems clear that Big Pharma, supported by the UK, the EU, Japan, and Switzerland, are waging a war against the TRIPS waiver proposal which represents “the human face” in addressing the COVID-19 pandemic.
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