[CTC] Early Statements on WTO Text Introduction

Tue May 3 13:37:01 PDT 2022

https://reliefweb.int/report/world/msf-urges-governments-reject-draft-covid-19-text-tabled-wto-today-would-set-negative <https://reliefweb.int/report/world/msf-urges-governments-reject-draft-covid-19-text-tabled-wto-today-would-set-negative> 

MSF urges governments to reject the draft COVID-19 text tabled at WTO today, that would set a negative precedent
Draft text is NOT the intellectual property Waiver for COVID-19 medical tools people need

NOTE: This is an updated re-release of a statement from 4 April 2022.

Geneva, 3 May 2022 – Today, one and a half years since India and South Africa first proposed a landmark intellectual property (IP) Waiver for COVID-19 medical tools at the World Trade Organization (WTO), a draft text that had been under discussion by several governments and was leaked in mid-March, has now been officially tabled at the WTO. Following a thorough analysis of the leaked text, Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) strongly urges all governments to reject this draft text, as it does not provide a meaningful solution to facilitate increasing people’s access to needed medical tools during the pandemic that has cost more than six million lives already, and in fact would set a negative precedent for future global health challenges. 

“This draft text being discussed at the WTO is simply not the effective intellectual property Waiver that more than 100 governments were asking for, and governments should reject it,” said Yuanqiong Hu, Senior Legal and Policy Advisor for MSF's Access Campaign. “This text fails to comprehensively address intellectual property challenges for COVID-19 medical tools as India and South Africa’s TRIPS Waiver proposal does: the disappointing draft text covers only vaccines, excluding treatments and diagnostics, it fails to address non-patent intellectual property barriers such as trade secrets, and it restricts which countries can make use of it. In addition, limitations and requirements in the draft text could possibly undermine existing flexibilities and this would be an unnecessary step backwards. If the draft text is agreed without thorough and substantive revisions, it would set a negative and detrimental precedent for future global health challenges. It’s beyond time for governments to move forward with negotiations on a TRIPS Waiver text that could be effective, like the one proposed almost seventeen months ago.” 

The draft text is categorically different from the TRIPS Waiver introduced by India and South Africa, which proposes to waive patents and other intellectual property (IP) barriers on all COVID-19 medical tools for the duration of the pandemic, and pave the way for any country to increase production and supply of these lifesaving medical tools. While the draft text attempts to address some restrictions on compulsory licensing rules for export, it fails to do so in a meaningful manner. (Such clarifications to existing rules, even if substantively revised from the current text, should then not apply only to COVID-19 but instead to all compulsory licenses, for all technologies, across disease areas, without a restricted duration, and for all WTO members.) 

“It is particularly disheartening to even consider delaying a decision on treatments and diagnostics by an additional six months, especially when access to COVID-19 treatments remains a significant problem for people in many low- and middle-income countries, and particularly in Latin America,” said Felipe de Carvalho, MSF Access Campaign Coordinator in Latin America. “The impact of the pandemic on people in countries in Latin America, including Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia and Peru, was devastating, and access to affordable generic medicines would be crucial if another COVID-19 wave were to hit this region.” 

MSF has clearly outlined that the final agreed TRIPS Waiver must cover not only vaccines, but all essential medical technologies, including treatments and tests, that all countries should be covered, and that the duration of the Waiver should be at least five years, in order to support the manufacturing and supply of COVID-19 medical tools, including needed materials and components, to be prepared, scaled up, diversified and sustained. 

“If the WTO moves forward with this draft text and calls it a day, the world will have missed a major opportunity to agree a meaningful intellectual property Waiver that could have helped overcome the gross inequity in access to COVID-19 medical tools that we have seen in many of the low- and middle-income countries where we work. Adopting this draft text would demonstrate a failed response on behalf of the WTO and global solidarity, and would clearly set a negative precedent for future global health challenges.” said de Carvalho. 

MSF also joined more than 40 civil society organisations in an open letter calling on the European Union to refrain from rushing WTO members to rapidly adopt the draft text. 

For more information/interviews, please contact: Shailly Gupta, +41 79 203 13 02 (also on whatsapp), shailly.gupta at geneva.msf.org

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For Immediate Release: May 3, 2022
Updated: 12:05pm Eastern

Contact: Matt Groch, mgroch at citizen.org <mailto:mgroch at citizen.org>, (603) 560-0847

WTO Decision to Introduce Widely Panned Leaked Text Is a Desperate Grasp for Relevance <https://www.citizen.org/news/wto-decision-to-introduce-widely-panned-leaked-text-is-a-desperate-grasp-for-relevance/>

WTO Members Must Keep Working for a True TRIPS Waiver

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Council Chair Ambassador Lansana Gberie of Sierra Leone today reportedly <https://twitter.com/ashleighfurlong/status/1521444373984067586> told World Trade Organization (WTO) members that the much maligned March 15 leaked text would be tabled imminently so it can be discussed and perhaps agreed at the May 6 formal TRIPS Council meeting. Shortly after, it was introduced with official document number IP/C/W/688 <https://www.wto.org/english/news_e/news22_e/trip_03may22_e.htm>. In a departure from standard practice, WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala attended today’s informal TRIPS Council meeting in person, signaling her desire for quick action. In light of this news, Melinda St. Louis, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch division, issued the following statement:

“The text just tabled is nearly identical to the one that leaked on March 15 – which civil society and academic experts around the world decried <https://www.citizen.org/article/leaked-wto-proposal-is-not-the-covid-19-medicines-waiver-we-need/> as ‘the lowest common denominator,’ an ‘abomination,’ and ‘worse than nothing.’ Criticism of this text has poured in from civil society in South Africa <https://healthjusticeinitiative.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/FINAL-SA-CSO-Letter-to-Minister-Patel-30-03-22-signatures.pdf>, India <https://twitter.com/campaign4meds/status/1504424383171170306?s=20&t=RG6Q1hc7fdvhJdWkJWNnQQ>, the U.S. <https://tradejusticeedfundorg.files.wordpress.com/2022/03/potus_leakedwtoproposalltr_033022.pdf>, the EU <https://haiweb.org/eu-pressures-wto-members-to-adopt-weak-waiver-text/>, and around the world <https://app.box.com/s/eoye72i9vqfaeryd04llkix53a9zhbbz>, as countries urge members to keep working for a true TRIPS waiver. The only changes are the additions of brackets around the country eligibility requirements and patent listing – indicating there is less agreement on those elements, though any of it can still be changed.  

“Once again, WTO officials are mischaracterizing the text as if it has been agreed by all four ‘quad’ members: India, South Africa, the U.S., and the EU. In fact, only the EU has signaled its support for the text, which is not surprising, as it supports their stance of using existing (insufficient) WTO rules in lieu of a meaningful waiver. India and South Africa have not agreed to the text, and Ambassador Katherine Tai has repeatedly pushed back on the notion of a quad compromise, insisting ‘that there has been no agreement.’

“It would be wholly inappropriate for the WTO to eke out a deal on this text to attempt to show the institution’s relevance rather than solve the real-world problems in global vaccine equity exacerbated by WTO rules.

“As this news comes just two days before the anniversary of President Joe Biden’s historic announcement of support for the waiver, public health advocates will gather tomorrow for a candlelight vigil for vaccine equity <https://www.citizen.org/news/wednesday-night-candlelight-vigil-in-front-of-white-house-demanding-more-leadership-from-the-u-s-to-end-the-pandemic/> at the White House and in cities around the country. The vigil will include a projector and oversized screen which will play videos from Be A Hero’s, Ady Barkan, and other videos from health providers and public health experts from South Africa, India and Chile. They will call on President Biden to secure a true TRIPS waiver that covers COVID-19 vaccines, testing, and treatments and demand that Congress pass funding to vaccinate the world and save lives.”

For more background, the March 15 leaked text:

Would impose new barriers on countries attempting to remove intellectual property barriers and increase COVID medicines production. Instead of waiving barriers, it would impose new conditions limiting the existing WTO rules that now allow countries to issue compulsory licenses for patented products, for example a new obligation to identify all patents covered by a waiver application.
Does not cover COVID tests or treatments. The leaked text would cover only vaccines, at a stage in the pandemic when world leaders acknowledge that testing and treatments are critically important. Tests and treatments are to be considered six months later if this text is agreed to, but the WTO is notorious for missing deadlines.
Does not cover all of the intellectual property barriers to COVID medicine access. It reiterates existing rules on patents while adding new barriers. It does not even address the other categories of intellectual property covered in the original waiver proposal: trade secrets, undisclosed data, copyright, and industrial design. Many key COVID-19 vaccines and medicines are protected by thorny thickets of intertwined IP protection, not just a patent or two.
Excludes entire countries. It applies only to “developing countries” that “exported <10%” of the world’s vaccines in 2021 (which would exclude China and Brazil), as well as developed countries that might export to countries in need. It may also inadvertently exclude least developed countries.

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For Immediate Release: May 3, 2022
Press Contact: Robyn Shapiro, rshapiro at economicliberties.us <mailto:rshapiro at economicliberties.us> (201) 819 2526

New WTO Text Wouldn’t Improve COVID Vaccine Access, Excludes Treatments, and Even Adds New Limits to Existing WTO Flexibilities Allowing Production of Drugs Without Patent Holder Permission

Washington, D.C. – The American Economic Liberties Project released the following statement in response to the submission of a text by the WTO’s Director General to the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Council for discussion as an alternative to the waiver of WTO intellectual property barriers that block global access to needed supplies of COVID-19 vaccines, treatments and tests. More than 100 WTO countries support a waiver, while the European Union, UK and Switzerland have blocked progress. On May 5, 2021, U.S. President Joe Biden announced support for a waiver of WTO IP barriers for vaccines. The text submitted today was leaked in mid-March and was roundly criticized by generic medicine manufacturers, prominent academics, and public health experts around the world. 

“This text would fail President Biden’s righteous mission of increasing access to vaccines to end the COVID crisis,” said Lori Wallach, Director of Rethink Trade at the American Economic Liberties Project. “Despite 100 countries supporting a waiver, this text does not suspend intellectual property barriers and even adds new conditions that undermine countries’ abilities to use existing WTO rules allowing production of medicines without patentholder permission.”

“It represents the lowest common denominator of EU fealty to Big Pharma by not waiving intellectual property monopolies and the U.S. insistence that only vaccines be considered despite the new lifesaving treatments that President Biden spotlights as critical to dealing with COVID.”

“The EU fealty to Big Pharma represented in this text is exposing the world to the risk of endless pandemic and ever-more-dangerous variants, and it could take down the WTO as collateral damage. How can it be that in the face of a global pandemic that has taken 15 million lives and destroyed billions more livelihoods, in two years the WTO cannot get out of the way of global access to medicines that governments paid pharmaceutical firms billions to develop and distribute? 

“Instead of a waiver, this text reiterated existing WTO rules for patent compulsory licensing that are widely considered to be unsuited to the COVID mission and that fail to cover most forms of IP at all but then adds new limitations to that,” added Wallach. 

Background: For much of the world, COVID-19 remains a daily ordeal. Less than 20% in developing nations have received initial shots thanks in no small part to absolute lack of supply during critical early months and then unpredictable delivery times and vaccines arriving close to expiration. And to this day, the most effective COVID-19 treatments remain unavailable in much of the world. 

Now second-generation vaccines are being developed to protect people from being infected by recent variants. If the world repeats the grotesque inequity of access for the new vaccines and the most effective treatments, we know what will happen, because we just lived it with Delta and Omicron: Lack of timely global access to vaccines effective in stopping infection and to treatments shorten illness will cause millions of people to suffer in raging outbreaks, which will also foster the development of new variants that can evade the new generation of vaccines. 

To hear the views on this text from South African and other public health experts, listen to the recent Rethinking Trade episode ‘Drugs, COVID, the WTO and a Leaked Text.’ <https://rethinktrade.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b9873cad1e4c6fd69c945c7d5&id=5d2fc6b695&e=311c82994a>

For a detailed analysis of the text, please see ‘Draft WTO COVID Text Leaked 3/15 Wouldn’t Improve Vaccine Access and Altogether Excludes Treatments and Tests: Beware the Ides of March Indeed!’  <https://rethinktrade.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b9873cad1e4c6fd69c945c7d5&id=24e191ced7&e=311c82994a>

Learn more about Economic Liberties <https://rethinktrade.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b9873cad1e4c6fd69c945c7d5&id=b14faefd68&e=311c82994a> and Rethink Trade <https://rethinktrade.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b9873cad1e4c6fd69c945c7d5&id=5853914ae1&e=311c82994a>.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 3, 2022

CONTACT: media at ustr.eop.gov <mailto:media at ustr.eop.gov> 
STATEMENT FROM AMBASSADOR MARÍA PAGÁN ON COVID-19 RESPONSE OUTCOME DOCUMENT

WASHINGTON – GENEVA – Deputy United States Trade Representative María Pagán today released the following statement after the World Trade Organization (WTO) Director-General put forward an outcome document for Members to consult on an intellectual property response to COVID-19.

“For nearly a year, the United States, as part of its comprehensive effort to end the pandemic, has worked constructively with other WTO Members to facilitate discussions and bridge differences that might lead to an outcome on intellectual property that can achieve consensus across the 164 Members of the World Trade Organization to help end the pandemic. In the days ahead, as part of the Biden-Harris Administration’s goal to get as many safe and effective vaccines to as many people as fast as possible, we look forward to continuing our engagement with members of Congress and stakeholders as all WTO Members consider the text released by the WTO Director-General.”

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Max Lawson, co-chair of the People’s Vaccine Alliance
https://twitter.com/peoplesvaccine/status/1521581604908552195?s=20&t=okl1AOoodDdlaFEEjGO8Qw <https://twitter.com/peoplesvaccine/status/1521581604908552195?s=20&t=okl1AOoodDdlaFEEjGO8Qw> 

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https://tradejusticeedfund.org/statement-wto-alternative-to-covid-ip-waiver-is-complete-garbage/ <https://tradejusticeedfund.org/statement-wto-alternative-to-covid-ip-waiver-is-complete-garbage/>
Statement: WTO Alternative to COVID IP Waiver Is Complete Garbage

May 3, 2022 | Press Releases <https://tradejusticeedfund.org/category/press-releases/>, Public Health <https://tradejusticeedfund.org/category/public-health/>
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The World Trade Organization (WTO) today formally introduced <https://www.keionline.org/wp-content/uploads/TRIPS-WTO-ip-c-w-66-3may2022.pdf?link_id=1&can_id=b645707b2a6858d667c1f090744bfb41&source=email-statement-biden-must-deliver-at-white-house-covid-summit&email_referrer=&email_subject=statement-wto-alternative-to-covid-ip-waiver-is-complete-garbage> an alternative proposal to a waiver of pharmaceutical monopoly rules restricting the increased production of COVID-19 vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics. Arthur Stamoulis, executive director of the Trade Justice Education Fund, released the following statement:

“This proposal not only fails to remove intellectual property barriers standing in the way of global access to COVID vaccines, tests and treatments, it actually imposes some new ones.

“If anything, the fact that it took the WTO over a year to come up with this completely backwards proposal shows just how broken and out of touch the corporate-centered institution remains.

“Billions of people around the world still do not have access to the COVID vaccines, tests and treatments that many Americans take for granted. Without strong U.S. leadership, thousands will continue to die needlessly each day, and the world will remain vulnerable to new COVID variants that can undo much of the progress made against the pandemic to date.

“At this point, the Biden administration can best demonstrate its support for vaccine equity by joining with South Africa, India and others in submitting an immediate joint amendment that would replace this proposal with language that actually helps low- and middle-income countries produce more of the critical medical technologies that are needed to save lives and end the pandemic.

“In the meantime, President Biden can help save lives and end the pandemic by using his existing authority to compel pharmaceutical monopolies to share their vaccine and treatment-making know-how with qualified producers around the world.”

The Trade Justice Education Fund, Amnesty International USA, Doctors Without Borders, Oxfam America, Partners In Health and others had already published a letter <https://tradejusticeedfundorg.files.wordpress.com/2022/03/potus_leakedwtoproposalltr_033022.pdf?link_id=1&can_id=b645707b2a6858d667c1f090744bfb41&source=email-protesters-nationwide-demand-govts-end-covid-monopolies-2&email_referrer=email_1495436&email_subject=us-groups-urge-biden-to-reject-leaked-ip-waiver-text&link_id=2&can_id=b645707b2a6858d667c1f090744bfb41&email_referrer=&email_subject=statement-wto-alternative-to-covid-ip-waiver-is-complete-garbage> detailing problems with the proposal and calling on President Biden to reject it when the proposal’s text first leaked last month.

Arthur Stamoulis
Citizens Trade Campaign
(202) 494-8826

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