|
New effort to break deadlock at WTO drugs talks
GENEVA (December 09 2002) : World Trade Organisation (WTO) states resumed efforts on Sunday to break a deadlock over cheap medicines for poorer countries, but officials saw no quick fix for a dispute souring the mood at global trade talks.
"It is an exploratory meeting today, we do not expect any decisions," said one trade official who declined to be named.
Envoys from many of the WTO's 144 member states were attending the first such talks since late November.
Sunday's meeting was called by Mexican ambassador Eduardo Perez Motta, who chairs the special negotiating committee.
They quoted him as saying he hoped to draw up a new draft text by the end of the week on how poorer countries facing health emergencies can side-step international patent rules on medicines.
The WTO's executive general council, which has the final word on any accord, holds its final meeting of the year from Tuesday to Friday.
WTO chief Supachai Panitchpakdi warned WTO states on Friday that they risked "collective discredit" if they missed a year-end deadline for settling the issue, which is casting a shadow over negotiations to free up world trade in areas ranging from agriculture to industry and finance.
When they launched the Doha round of trade talks a year ago, trade ministers agreed that international patent laws could be set aside by countries facing health emergencies like AIDS.
But with the deadline looming, countries are still struggling over the details.
Health officials say that access to cheaper medicines, either through a lowering of the cost of patented varieties or through supplies of generic alternatives, is vital for the millions threatened by killer diseases -- malaria and tuberculosis as well as AIDS -- in Africa and elsewhere.
Countries are split on whether the health emergencies covered by any accord should be limited to AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis and over which states should be automatically entitled to use the system.
Rich members such as the United States, the European Union and Switzerland, which have powerful drugs companies, also want a series of conditions for use of the system, conditions which poorer states reject.
Courtesy Business Recorder
|
Pakissan.com; Advisory Point
|
