New Delhi, Jun 8 (Bureau) The World Trade Organisation’s TRIPS Council formally begins discussion on the revised India-South Africa proposal on waiving intellectual property rights of Covid vaccines and other medical products. Members will discuss the proposal India and South Africa submitted last month and seek a consensus-based outcome.
More than 60 WTO member nations including the US and China have backed the proposal. But the European Union, the United Kingdom, and Japan have voiced opposition to the move. The EU and UK have submitted a counter-proposal, enumerating initiatives such as reduced export restrictions and increased collaborations with producers in developing countries. On the issue of waiver, the EU has said that it is “not convinced” that doing away with the IP protection, even temporarily, will give the “best immediate response to reach the objective of the widest and timely distribution of Covid-19 vaccines that the world urgently needs”.
The agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights or TRIPS that came into effect in January 1995 is a multilateral agreement on intellectual property rights such as copyright, industrial designs, patents and protection of undisclosed information or trade secrets. International medical humanitarian organisation Medicins Sans Frontieres has asked the EU and the UK to stop “blocking negotiations”. Ahead of the June 8-9 WTO Council meeting, MSF said that an IP waiver would give countries a policy backbone to address IP barriers and increase collaboration in research and development, manufacturing, scale-up, and supply of Covid-19 medicines, vaccines and other health technologies.