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The TRIPS and public health 


By: The Attac group on international treaties
Sand in the Wheels ( nº106), November 28, 2001

 

Will the Declaration give better access to medicines? That will depend on how the developing countries make use of the pliancy of implementation written into the Trips agreement.

However, the declaration on the Trips and public health was welcomed by civil society.

An Oxfam representative spoke of a "significant and welcome change, allowing a re-interpretation of the Trips agreement. The joint efforts of developing countries and NGOs seem to have paid off, in so far as the WTO has adopted the Declaration which stipulates that "the Trips agreement should not prevent member states from taking the measures [they judge necessary] to protect public health, particularly where access to medicines is concerned."

Some of those present pointed out the importance of the NGO commitment in this field, this having enabled the "undoing of the combined power of the multinational firms in the pharmaceutical industry and their government allies in Germany, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Australia, Canada and the USA." Others stressed the predominant role played by the developing countries : "the NGOs should salute the unshakeable stand of the developing countries on this point", because the NGO "role was secondary, and they contributed especially by bolstering the determination of the developing countries not to give way to political pressures."

According to Médecins Sans Frontières and others, the consensus which came about should force countries to think twice about attacking the public health policies of the poor countries before the DSB.

Some NGOs voiced reserves about the Declaration. Many among them were disappointed that the WTO missed the opportunity to resolve the question of countries importing generic medicines when they themselves had not the capacity to produce them. This question, according to paragraph 6 of the Declaration, belonged to the Trips Council, which has been instructed to make a report to the General Council by the end of 2002. Others feel that the final clauses, even if they do take up the developing countries' demands made in pre-Doha discussions, constitute a watered-down version of the initial requirements, while others again criticized the lack of legally constraining commitments in the Declaration.