WTO members begin text-based negotiations on TRIPS waiver for Covid-19 vaccines, tools

 The WTO’s TRIPS Council has finally begun text-based negotiations on the proposed temporary waiver of IP rules as a response to Covid-19, a key demand by India and South Africa. The aim is to arrive at a multilateral outcome on the long-pending matter by the 12th Ministerial Conference (MC12) next month, a Geneva-based trade official said.

“India’s representative stressed on ensuring that the outcome should lead to equitable and affordable access and security of supplies, and the solution, while being practical, must lend itself to immediate implementation,” the official told BusinessLine.

Finding a common ground

South Africa and India had first put forward a proposal for temporary waiver of Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) norms on production and supplies of Covid-19 vaccines and medical tools on October 2, 2020, arguing that it was crucial to address the growing vaccine inequity globally. However, getting all members, especially certain developed members, to agree to it, has been difficult.

A draft text, based on the outcome of the meetings held recently by the US, the EU, India and South Africa (the Quad) to sort out the issue, has now been circulated by the TRIPS council chair, and the members will now negotiate over the next few days to try and find a common ground and achieve a multilateral outcome by MC12, scheduled from June 12 to 15.

“Although the outcome document has been culled from the series of meetings among the Quad countries, there are major areas of disagreement on issues such as the coverage of items and countries as well as additional conditionalities that could undermine current flexibilities. The text-based negotiations would ensure that contentious areas get ironed out,” a Delhi-based industry source pointed out.

Addressing bottlenecks

South Africa noted at the meeting that the solution should not be limited to vaccines but cover the production of all Covid-19 products, including diagnostics and therapeutics in different locations of the world, especially in Africa, which doesn’t have enough domestic capacity and is dependent on imports.

“The South African representative said the text was not perfect, and fell short of what had been proposed but hoped that members would make targetted textual contributions in the text-based negotiation so as to conclude negotiations before MC12,” the Geneva official said.

The EU, which was opposed to a waiver of any kind initially, said it was trying to address the identified bottlenecks that stand in the way of achieving the common goal of ensuring equitable access to Covid-19 vaccines and to address other elements needed for a broader package of key outcomes for MC12. These include joint action against food security concerns and agriculture sustainability as well as the conclusion of the fishery subsidies negotiations and WTO reform.

Some other delegations, such as ones from the UK and Switzerland, requested further clarification on the proposal and cautioned that the process should not be rushed.

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