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Journalism of Courage
Uncle Sam is set to enter the WTO meet at Cancun wearing a halo. In the run-up to the biennial ministerial this month, the US suddenly gave up its longstanding objections to a humanitarian deal aimed at providing expensive life-saving drugs to poor countries at reduced rates. In the process, it8217;s emerged from an isolation it did not face even when it launched the Iraq war without UN assent.
Last December, the lone superpower earned the odium of being unconcerned about the state of public health in 8216;8216;least developed countries8217;8217; afflicted by HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and other epidemics. The opposition from the US scuttled a consensus then among the rest of the WTO members on making patented drugs more affordable to LDCs and developing countries which did not have the requisite manufacturing capacities. The Bush administration was alleged to have taken on the whole world to repay its IOUs to the powerful pharmaceutical industry in the US which owns most of the drug patents. So, eight months after the deadline for the drug deal, how did the US finally say yes on August 30? Did George W. Bush have a change of heart? Or, was it just a cleverly timed PR exercise?
It was on the basis of this mandate that the then chairman of the TRIPS Council, Perez Motta of Mexico, drafted an arrangement which empowers a poor country with little or no manufacturing capacity to import cheap generic versions of patented drugs. The Perez Motta text promised a windfall to countries like India and Brazil, which already have well established capacities for manufacturing such drugs for local consumption. The proposed change would permit them to export to countries unable to manufacture the medicines them- selves. But in the event, the US opposition to the Perez Motta text prevented the WTO from meeting the December 2002 deadline. There was in fact a clear deadlock as the US had its own concerns about the possibility of the patent waiver being abused by generic producers. The pressure of the fast-approaching Cancun meeting helped break the deadlock on August 30, that too without deviating anywhere from the Perez Motta text. The US dropped its insistence that that only HIV/AIDS, malaria and TB should come under the purview of the pact. It will cover all public health problems.
On the face of it, the only concession the US got is that the Perez Motta text is accompanied by a statement declaring the intention of all WTO members to use the system 8216;8216;in good faith8217;8217;. There is nothing exceptionable about that good faith statement. It undertakes that the waiver of patents for protecting public health in poor countries should not be 8216;8216;an instrument to pursue industrial or commercial policy objectives8217;8217; and the drugs supplied under this pact should not be 8216;8216;diverted from the markets for which they are intended8217;8217;.
But there are doubts about how easy it is to work the system precisely because of the safeguards it provides against abuse of the patent waiver. Both the importing and exporting countries need to notify every transaction to the WTO. Critics believe that the procedure may prove to be cumbersome and inflate the docket of the dispute settlement body of the WTO. Besides, the deal does not accommodate India8217;s demand that the exporting country should be exempt from paying any remuneration to the patent holder. The remuneration for the necessary licence to waive the patent will be paid to the patent holder in the exporting country. Notwithstanding such costs and conditions, the stock market in India responded very positively to the August 30 settlement. The WTO has made its presence felt in India as pharma scrips are booming in anticipation of massive exports.
