'Compromise' on TRIPS waiver is a sellout

Tough new conditions emerge in the compromise deal to ease WTO intellectual property barriers to production of COVID-19 medical tools

- LATHA JISHNU

WE ARE back to square one. Back to the beginning after 18 months of a V wearying, tortuous series of negotiations that carried on while millions of lives hung in the balance—and still do. The waiver of intellectual property (IP) rights on medicines, vaccines and diagnostics to fight the COVID-19 pandemic sought by India and South Africa—and backed by more than 100 countries at the World Trade Organization (WTO)—has not made much headway, a leaked document reveals.

In fact, experts say the so-called compromise merely reiterates existing flexibilities in the WTO rules and, worse, adds new conditions that are onerous in the extreme.

The document, made public by global health campaigners on March 15 this year, is a purported compromise reached by a quad of interested parties to break the impasse at WTO. It comprises the two movers of the October 2020 proposal and the world's two largest trading blocs, the EU and the US. The agreement, brokered by wro chief Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has to be formally approved by the four parties to the secret negotiations that have been going on for some weeks now. That is how uncertain the outcome is. Even if the four parties endorse the current draft, it could also be turned down by other members of WTO, which requires consensus on such matters.

While that may be the case, the leaked compromise begs several questions. First and foremost is why India and South Africa are backing a decision that essentially does little to remove the IP barriers that are blocking the increased production of COVID-19 medical tools, from vaccines and therapies to diagnostic kits, and are thus restricting access to these life-saving products.