Trade Won, Health Did Not. A Sliver of a Waiver at the WTO.

Newsletter Edition #146 [Geneva Health Files: WTO Ministerial Conference Update]

Hi,

A soothing wind blew across the lakeside where the WTO is situated, calming frayed nerves of sleepless diplomats and tired trade geeks. This was the evening before the marathon ministerial conference which ended on June 17.

A senior ambassador, was reflecting on his perspectives on the TRIPS Waiver discussions at the WTO. “They have made changes within the rulebook. They could not have kept the rulebook aside”, he told me during a spontaneous conversation. That, in essence captured the past 20 months.

It happens very often in public policy, at both national and international levels, when institutions turn slavish to rules they have created even when such rules may not be serving public interest. This kills creativity and innovation especially while responding to emergencies.

Meanwhile, inside the green rooms, as dusk turned to dawn, difficult negotiations resulted in a nail-biting finish. In the end, trade had won. And health had not.

Read our update on the global health decisions made at the WTO at its Ministerial Conference that concluded yesterday.

Our story today, follows an update earlier in the week: "Power" Trips the Waiver at the WTO, no consensus yet hours before the close of MC12.

As a reporter chronicling these discussions, it feels like the end of a chapter, but the beginning of the post-Waiver world. I am convinced that trade and health are even more inextricably linked like never before.

We intend to continue our reporting on how trade cramps health priorities. Details matter and challenging lazy narratives with facts are important to us. Consider becoming paying subscribers to support our journalism. You can also make donations towards meeting our reporting costs.

We will likely not have an edition next week as I recover from accosting diplomats for the past month, first at the World Health Assembly and then at the WTO Ministerial Conference. Thank you for understanding.

Until later!

Priti

Feel free to write to us: patnaik.reporting@gmail.com or genevahealthfiles@protonmail.com; Follow us on Twitter: @filesgeneva

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Trade Won, Health Did Not. A Sliver of a Waiver at the WTO.

There was jubilation and cheer after the landmark ministerial conference at the WTO which saw a raft of agreements between its 164 members, that some say, has set a new benchmark for success, a kind not witnessed in decades. The outcome also included a weak text clarifying the use of existing rules in the WTO TRIPS Agreement. For the 100-odd countries that supported the original TRIPS waiver proposal, and countless supporters globally, conference was a moment of resignation. It was the culmination of 20 months of a fight that saw sustained resistance from many developed countries that refused to waive intellectual property protection rules to boost manufacturing of COVID-19 medical products.

The performance of multilateralism at the 12th ministerial conference in Geneva was for the survival of international and domestic elites and failed the world's poorest, Hyo Yoon Kang, a scholar of intellectual property law tweeted, hours after the ministerial. For months, Kang and others, have highlighted the politics of the intellectual property legal regime and have shed light on the importance of waiving intellectual property provisions in the TRIPS Agreement to fight the pandemic.

But voices like Kang’s have been too distant at the WTO that has been all too keen to preserve prevailing IP regimes even in the face of the worst health emergency in 100 years.

This week the WTO adopted a weak text that essentially, only partially waived a single provision of the TRIPS agreement. In fact, so far is this text from the original TRIPS waiver proposal led by South Africa and India, that activists tried hard, and failed, in persuading WTO members to reject the text.

The dust will eventually settle down in Geneva, after 20 months of intense and divided debate on the TRIPS waiver. But observers say, a dent has been made. And the efforts to make intellectual property rules accountable to public health interests, will undoubtedly continue.

This story tries to capture the final hours of negotiations around the TRIPS waiver discussions at the ministerial conference. We also try to understand what this will mean for the future.  

Photo by Viktoria Goda: Pexels