WTO decisions patently in favour of MNCs

The World Trade Organisation (WTO) came into existence in the year 1995 to regulate and facilitate international trade of its member countries. It is the world’s largest international economic organisation, with 164 member states representing over 98% of global trade and global GDP. India is also a member.

Among several areas of international trade negotiations, WTO’s stand on Patents seems a source of controversy. What are patents? They are basically a government’s licence that confers the sole right for a set period of time, to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention. Needless to say, most Patents on medicines and related products are owned by big companies giving them the absolute right to dictate the price of the product; be it a drug, diagnostics or any invention related to healthcare. Patents, trade secrets, copyrights and industrial designs are all covered under the acronym TRIPS (Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) under the WTO.

The 12th Ministerial Conference (MC12) of WTO on June 17, approved a package of decisions and declarations, also called ‘TRIPS Waiver’, which will have far more consequences in handling Covid-like endemics in future. Let us briefly examine the background to this.

On October 2, 2020, when the global Covid pandemic was at its peak, India and South Africa submitted a letter to the WTO seeking a waiver from certain provisions of the patents-related agreement, which would remove trade barriers so as to ensure adequate supply of vaccines, diagnostic and other useful treatment methods, to save lives of people across the world. Initially, member countries were reluctant to join them but in May 2021, a revised proposal was submitted by 62 co-sponsors, including India, South Africa and Indonesia. Tody, 105 countries support the TRIPS Waiver as proposed by the governments of India and South Africa.

It is a matter of deep shame that after more than a year-and-half, and several rounds of discussions at the WTO’s Ministerial Conference, WTO has failed to give even a temporary relief to its members. The WTO’s MC took a decision, which is no longer a comprehensive TRIPS Waiver as proposed by South Africa and India in October 2020 that enabled producing and accessing Covid-19 counter measures.

The broad waiver characteristics were lost when the European Union’s counter-proposal in October 2021, which was centred around using the existing TRIPS flexibility of compulsory licensing, became the core of the draft that was presented this week to the members to work with. While the pandemic ravaged nation after nation and left the poor countries defenceless, the WTO debates continued to ultimately deliver a completely corporate-driven policy that will benefit big companies at the cost of millions of lives.

Poor countries protest

India’s Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal commented that it is a “half-baked” deal far from the needs of the member countries. A UN health worker mentioned, “A handful of countries are refusing to make concessions. They are blocking a consensus among most of the world for a simple, full waiver. This is a historic mistake. It is dividing the world at a moment we need global unity.” This is also widening inequalities and “creating global pandemic between haves and have-nots”, she added. A handful of countries refer to the US and Germany.

The fact that the WTO secretariat, led by Director-General Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, pushed such a document for consideration of the wider WTO membership tarnished its reputation as an honest broker, especially when dealing with proposals from the global South.

Amidst these growing global voices, two schools of thought have emerged: One by rich countries like the US, Germany and EU, that Patents are not a hurdle for access to life saving healthcare technologies; and the other expressing exactly the opposite by developing countries like India and South Africa, that Patents in fact create a hurdle and delay access to important life-saving healthcare technologies resulting in avoidable morbidities and mortalities.

If the documented scientific evidence is to be believed, the stand of the developing countries seems appropriate.

The US perceives that Patents are a hurdle for access to vaccines only and nothing else, and the TRIPS waiver includes vaccines leaving out other interventions like diagnostic or therapeutic measures for Covid-19.

What is really intriguing is the fact that even rich countries are getting embroiled over issues related to patents and are thus unable to deliver key and basic health services. For example, 3M, a multinational company, had patented the N95 respiratory resulting in its shortage when it was most needed -- during the pandemic. Just because 3M had the patent rights, others could not manufacture it and 3M itself did not have the capacity to deliver the required numbers.

Our policy makers have to realise that Covid-like public health situations demand war-footing interventions and there is no time to be wasted dilly-dallying. And let us all remember that Covid virus does not go by geographical boundaries. It has been rightly said that till everyone is safe on this earth against Covid, no one safe!

The tiny virus has the capacity and intelligence to spread itself globally; can’t human beings go beyond the boundaries of Patents and rich-poor countries to contain such deadly endemics in future? Are humans intellectually less capable? Or are they just greedy for more profits?

(The writer is president, Drug Action Forum of Karnataka)