[Ip-health] Robert Evans on Doha negotiations

[James Love]

http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=healthNews&storyID=1954184

WTO Cheap Drugs Bid Stymied After U.S. Balks
Mon December 23, 2002 12:36 PM ET
By Robert Evans

GENEVA (Reuters) - The United States Friday effectively blocked agreement
on a global pact to allow poor countries to buy cheap drugs to tackle
epidemics such as AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, diplomats said.

Envoys going into a late-night meeting at the World Trade Organization
(WTO) just an hour before the deadline for an accord on the highly
sensitive issue said there would be no deal, but talks would probably be
resumed in the New Year.

They said that after a day of negotiations and intensive consultations
with capitals to bend WTO patent rules, word had come from Washington that
it could not agree to a compromise text because it was "too flexible."

They said the United States felt it could be interpreted as meaning drug
patents could be ignored on treatments for a wide range of diseases.

In Washington, US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick said in a statement
his country would continue to work with other WTO members to try to find a
solution and said it would not challenge any country that broke WTO rules
to export generic versions of patented drugs to poor countries that needed
them.

"The United States has worked intensively to find a solution that will
provide life-saving drugs to those truly in need, and will continue to
work toward that end," Zoellick said.

The statement said the scope of the proposed pact in Geneva went beyond
what countries agreed to last year in Doha, Qatar.

In talks over the past year, "some WTO members" and advocacy groups had
tried to expand the "poor country epidemic" focus of the Doha declaration
to allow much wealthier nations to override a wide range of drug patents,
the statement said.

In a separate statement, the US pharmaceutical industry said it supported
the US moratorium on dispute settlement actions against drug patent
violations to help poor countries.

One non-governmental organization (NGO) campaigning for a deal in Geneva
accused major powers of being driven by the interests of their
pharmaceutical firms rather than by humanitarian considerations.

The group, Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF), said that when talks resumed,
the United States and others like Switzerland and the European Union--both
of whom had accepted the draft--should rethink their positions.

They must accept "a fair text that gives priority to people's health," MSF
declared.

The failure, which could seriously rebound on the current Doha Round of
overall free trade negotiations in the WTO, had been predicted earlier by
several diplomats.

"I don't see the Americans giving in," said an Asian envoy. "They are
under too much political pressure in Congress."

AFRICAN DISEASES ONLY NOT ACCEPTABLE

Envoys from other regions said a suggestion that an accord could
specifically list only African diseases was not acceptable.

"We are developing countries too," said a negotiator from a small Latin
American nation.

The outcome of the talks was likely to sour further the Doha Round
atmosphere, already tense over problems in agriculture, where WTO
countries have been officially described as "miles apart," and over
failure to reach another agreement also by Friday on special treatment for
poorer developing states.

Poorer countries wanted the drug deal to allow them to order copies of
drugs developed by major pharmaceutical firms based in richer states from
manufacturers in countries like India, Thailand and Brazil.

They saw an agreement as a touchstone of the sincerity of assurances from
the big trading powers that they would emerge winners from the round.

Some diplomats from Africa, Asia and Latin America said that without a
drugs agreement, they would not agree to compromise on other issues in the
round whose success the big powers--especially the United States--see as
vital to boost global business.

An outline drugs accord was first approved at a WTO ministerial conference
in Doha 13 months ago, clearing the way for agreement to launch the new
round aimed at lowering barriers to trade in goods and services.

But since then, efforts in several meetings between the key players have
failed to hone down details into a pact pleasing all sides.