That talk again

Sinha is perhaps right in saying that several developing countries find TRIPs disadvantageous to themselves, but this did not prevent them from leaving India to plough a lonely furrow in the Uruguay Round talks. Some developing countries indeed have already moved to product patents, required only after a time lag under TRIPs, and their experience has been that this is not the disaster it has been made out to be. India’s position on TRIPs today is, if anything, even more precarious than in the past. It carries the burden of being in default of the TRIPs agreement, and fighting a looming deadline on compliance. In the world-trade system things never are black and white, of course. Countries offer trade-offs in sectors that are crucial to their trading partners in order to secure concessions in areas that are crucial to themselves. Talks on agriculture are starting next year in the WTO, and several developed countries are looking for significant trade liberalisation there. As a stalling tactic if not asa bargaining chip, it could be said for argument’s sake that developing countries could posit concessions in one agreement against relaxations elsewhere.

But even if that were possible, India has not allowed itself even that elbow room, thanks largely to the BJP itself: anything viewed as a concession in the WTO is guaranteed to set off a row. In any case, TRIPs was not pushed through by the developed world only in order to allow its renegotiation. Given the history of world trade negotiations in recent years, it defies the imagination that a reversal of the liberalisation achieved in any sector in the Uruguay Round could be agreed to by WTO members. Worst of all, perhaps, India has repeatedly misjudged the international mood and ended up looking rather silly in trying to forge developing-world unity where manifestly none existed. There is no reason at all to assume that where it lost out on several previous occasions, India will win this time. The BJP really should concede with good grace that India hascommitted itself to amending its patent law, and get on with the job so that this issue does not become an albatross round India’s neck in other trade and diplomatic dealings.