<\/p>\n
News<\/span><\/b>: In 2020, India and South Africa gave a call at the World Trade Organization (WTO)\u202ffor the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) waiver wrt Covid-19.<\/span><\/p>\n Now,\u202fa<\/span> deal has been brokered between the EU, the U.S., India, and South Africa on the issue.\u00a0 <\/span> However, the waiver is a classic case of too little, too late. This withered down version of the TRIPS waiver will further dent the WTO\u2019s relevance and credibility.<\/p>\n First,<\/strong><\/em> the draft waiver does not cover any COVID-19 medical products other than Covid vaccines<\/strong>. For instance<\/strong>, baricitinib, which was recommended by WHO for treating critical COVID-19 will not be covered under it.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Second,<\/strong><\/em> India proposed to waive all IP rights, not just patents. But the waiver aims to waive only patents<\/strong>. The waivers do not cover other IP rights. <\/span><\/p>\n Third,<\/strong><\/em> the draft waiver will allow the countries to export any proportion of vaccines that is produced domestically to eligible countries. This waiver is subject to several requirements.<\/strong> For example, <\/span><\/p>\n –<\/strong> eligible members cannot re-export vaccines<\/span><\/p>\n –<\/strong> WTO must be notified about every entity that has been authorised to produce the product<\/span><\/p>\n –<\/strong> The authorization of Compulsory Licence (CL) must be on a product-by-product basis (Trip Plus Obligation) etc.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Fourth,<\/strong><\/em> the draft waiver is not applicable to the least developed countries<\/strong>. Only those developing countries that exported less than 10% of world exports of COVID-19 vaccine doses in 2021 are allowed for exportation and importation. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Fifth,<\/strong><\/em> t<\/span>he draft waives the obligation of a member to protect undisclosed information submitted before a drug regulator to claim marketing approval in the present context. But, it is silent on overcoming the challenges posed by protection to other trade secrets<\/strong> covered under Article 39.1 and 39.2 of TRIPS.<\/p>\n No.<\/p>\n In the aftermath of the HIV\/AIDS crisis in Africa, the WTO adopted a decision in 2003 waiving certain TRIPS obligations to increase the accessibility of medicines in countries that lacked manufacturing capability.<\/p>\n However, this waiver was subject to stringent requirements<\/strong> because of which hardly any country made effective use of this waiver.<\/p>\n The deal will now be presented to the entire WTO membership to be accepted at the forthcoming ministerial meeting.<\/span><\/p>\n Source<\/span><\/b>: The post is based on an article \u201c<\/span>Profit over public health<\/span><\/b>\u201d published in The Hindu<\/strong> on 28<\/strong><\/span>th<\/strong> Mar 22<\/strong>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" News: In 2020, India and South Africa gave a call at the World Trade Organization (WTO)\u202ffor the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) waiver wrt Covid-19. Now,\u202fa deal has been brokered between the EU, the U.S., India, and South Africa on the issue.\u00a0 However, the waiver is a classic case of too little, too… Continue reading On TRIPS waiver: Profit over public health\u00a0<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10328,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[216,10498],"class_list":["post-176406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-gs-paper-3","tag-the-hindu","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1703292762},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10328"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176406\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/span><\/p>\nWhat are the issues with the waiver?<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h5>\n
Have such waivers proved effective in the past?<\/h5>\n
What is going to happen now?<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h5>\n