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Debate on Patent Rights Shakes Up WTO Conference |
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At the World Trade Organization meeting that concluded Tuesday in Qatar, developing countries insisted on access to medications, free of the obstacles imposed by pharmaceutical transnationals.
DOHA - Intellectual property rules that obstruct poor countries' access to medicine was one of the thorniest issues debated at the Fourth Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO), which concluded Tuesday in the Qatar capital.
The controversy pits developing countries, which demand the right to copy the formulas of crucial medications to provide affordable treatment for AIDS, tuberculosis or malaria, against some industrialized nations, which stand behind the patent rights of their giant pharmaceutical corporations.
The matter was included - in two versions - in the draft declaration that was debated in the Qatar capital by the trade ministers from the more than 140 WTO member countries. Other chapters of the declaration outline the WTO's position on the future of trade and the implementation of pending aspects of previous agreements.
Representatives from developing countries and from non-governmental organizations (NGOs) specializing in humanitarian efforts have condemned the two versions, saying they favor the interests of wealthy nations.
Ali Mchumo, ambassador of Tanzania before the WTO and the coordinator of the 49-member bloc of Least Developed Countries, lamented that the documents failed to reflect the demands and viewpoints of developing countries in general.
The draft documents were under negotiation for nearly a year in Geneva, Switzerland, where the WTO is headquartered. But Martin Khor, the director of the Malaysia-based non-governmental Third World Network, which has branches in Asia, Africa and Latin America, said the process had been ''incredibly manipulated.''
Khor said developing countries came under tremendous pressure from industrialized countries seeking support for the launch of a comprehensive new round of multilateral trade talks at the Doha conference.
The United States and the European Union had been proposing a new round of negotiations as a panacea for overcoming the global recession, which was accentuated by the Sep 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.
As far as patent rights on medications, the text prepared on that question reflects the gulf separating developing countries, led by a bloc of African nations, as well as India and Brazil, from industrialised countries like the United States and Switzerland, where the pharmaceutical giants are headquartered.
Developing countries demand access to medications without the limitations imposed by the patent rights of the drug transnationals.
The initiative, presented by the Zimbabwe delegation, says the ministers should declare that no rule under the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) may impede WTO members from adopting measures to protect public health.
Developing countries maintain that the ministers should recognise that the TRIPS text grants the WTO member states sufficient flexibility to enact health policies that ensure access to affordable medicines without constituting a violation of intellectual property rights.
The stipulations of the proposal include an appeal that the WTO meeting in Doha suspend any legal action for alleged violations of the TRIPS accord, cases that currently are threatening health services in several countries.
They also cover compulsory licensing, the right of governments to authorise the copying of formulas in order to produce low-cost medications during times of health emergencies; and parallel imports, which make it legal to purchase pharmaceuticals outside the country at lower prices than those available locally.
In contrast to the stance of the developing nations, five industrialised countries - Australia, Canada, Japan, Switzerland and the United States - presented an alternative draft document that outlines the arguments of the pharmaceutical transnationals in the debate.
The Britain-based humanitarian organisation Oxfam International issued a statement recently that the big drug companies, which it says are the primary beneficiaries of the globalisation of intellectual property rules, have major interests at stake in the WTO discussions.
The US-based pharmaceutical companies last year saw foreign revenues of 36.5 billion dollars in patent rights and royalties alone, more than half of the world total, according to the humanitarian group.
During the WTO debate, the United States and Switzerland, the two countries that are home to the world's leading pharmaceutical laboratories, rejected the idea that TRIPS rules are obstacles to obtaining medications at low cost.
Ellen 't Hoen, spokeswoman for the non-governmental Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF - Doctors without Borders), charged that the matter of access to medicine cannot be reduced to a debate among diplomats because the health of millions of people around the world is at stake.
* Source: IPS Correspondents
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