HomeWorld NewsWTO divided over India, South Africa's proposal to temporarily hold IPR enforcement to fight COVID

WTO divided over India, South Africa's proposal to temporarily hold IPR enforcement to fight COVID

Members of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) could not arrive at a consensus to temporarily put on hold the global Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) regime.

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By Rituparna Bhuyan  October 21, 2020, 12:06:24 PM IST (Published)

WTO divided over India, South Africa's proposal to temporarily hold IPR enforcement to fight COVID
Members of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) could not arrive at a consensus to temporarily put on hold the global Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) regime to ensure speedy and affordable access of vaccines, medicines and other treatments related to COVID-19.


 

The idea to pause enforcement of IPR commitments under the TRIPS (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) agreement was floated by India and South Africa at the Geneva-headquartered institution.

 

The proposal got a mix response at the meeting of the TRIPS council at the WTO on 15th and 16th October as some countries supported it but wanted more time to study the fine print and legal implications of the idea.


On the other hand, many WTO members opposed the proposal saying “non-efficient and underfunded health care and procurement systems, spiking demand and lack of manufacturing capacity are much more likely to impede access to these materials".

 

As countries remain divided on waiving TRIPS commitments to fight COVID-19, the proposal will be taken up again by the council before the end of this calendar year after which it will be forwarded to the WTO general council for consideration.

 

“While a number of developing and least-developed country members welcomed the proposal as a contribution to the discussion, many were still studying it in their capitals and asked for clarification on certain points, particularly regarding its practical implementation and the possible economic and legal impact of the waiver at the national level. A number of developing and developed country members opposed the waiver proposal, noting that there is no indication that Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) have been a genuine barrier to accessing COVID-19 related medicines and technologies,” the WTO said in a media statement.

 

India and South Africa had proposed that TRIPS related commitments on copyright, industrial designs, patents and protection of undisclosed information should be waived off temporarily to help fight COVID-19. 

 

“The proponents argued that many countries - especially developing countries - may face institutional and legal difficulties when using TRIPS flexibilities, including the special compulsory licensing mechanism provided for in Article 31bis, which they saw as a cumbersome process for the import and export of pharmaceutical products. Now was the time for the WTO as an organisation to rise up to the collective call for defeating the pandemic. The WTO would not succeed in its efforts to rebuild the COVID-19 affected economies unless it acts now to first save those lives that are going to build these economies. It is time for members to take collective responsibility and put people's lives before anything else, they concluded,” the WTO said. 
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