Thursday, November 10, 2022

WTO Negotiations and their context!

I haven't blogged about the Intellectual Property waiver that was agreed to in the WTO. The waiver is here. However, I had blogged about the US decision to support the waiver here.

A recent piece in the Politico titled "Who killed the Covid vaccine waiver" was a fascinating account of the negotiations leading upto the waiver. Hat tip to Thiru Balasubramanian for this lead.

Whichever side of the debate on IP and access to health one is on, the complex relationship between business, trade, intellectual property, public interest and national interest is laid bare in this piece. Whether "lobbying" is actually advancing one's national business interest or intellectual property protection actually benefits access to health in a pandemic are debatable and subject to contrarian, heated often strongly-held views, the fact that negotiations at the WTO are an amalgam of national positions, business interests, negotiating strength, public sentiment, pragmatic endings and sustainable coalitions is evidenced in the waiver negotiations. Actually, it is evidenced in all negotiations!

The piece brings out a number of facets of international trade negotiations:

1. How trade policy positions are arrived at by members and what considerations influence WTO negotiating positions - a strong business interest vis a vis interest in getting cheap access to medicines for one's citizens

2. Role of business in crafting those positions or influencing them as well as the ability of civil society organisations to influence public policy. The ability to do so would also largely depend on where the business is located and how much of it contributes to the national economy.

3. The actual business interest that needs to be protected and the resultant negotiating position - for example, if a member did not have a strong IP manufacturing base, the likelihood of support for the waiver would be greater though not inevitable.

4. The importance of coalitions and fear of not being boxed into the corner in any negotiations.

5. The importance of text based negotiations and legalese apart from the broad declaration of intent to negotiate

6. The inevitability of arriving at pragmatic solutions midway - what the middle point is, is often determined by negotiating strength and ability to craft rules

7. The existence of two narratives of the role of IP in the debate on public health - one that firmly believes that it fosters innovation and thus is a key enabler of public access to medicines and the other that believes that patent protection is a barrier to access to cheap medicines worldwide. That debate, with statistics and research is bound to continue.

Negotiations at the WTO are about a mix of domestic business interests, national strategies of growth, access to markets, benefit to consumers as well as the growth in trade across sectors. This piece brought out that potent mix.

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