Press coverage of WTO Rules on the Export of Generic Medicines Produced Under Compulsory License

December 9, 2005
Mike Palmedo

The WTO’s Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) allows Members to issue compulsory licenses for any reason, provided certain guidelines are followed. One of the WTO rules is that is that production under a compulsory license is normally limited to be used “predominately” for domestic use.

This presents a problem, because the country that seeks to override the exclusive rights of a patent ,for example because the patent owner cannot supply the medicine (i.e. Cipro or Tamilfu), or charges prices that are too high (AIDS and other drugs in developing countries), often does not have efficient domestic generic suppliers, and therefore needs to be able to import from foreign countries. If no one can export, no one will be able to import.

On December 6, 2005, WTO Members reached a deal on an amendment to the TRIPS Agreement that makes permanent a complicated, bureaucratic set of rules governing the export of medicines produced under compulsory license. These rules had been temporarily in place since August 2003, under a “waiver” of the TRIPS agreement that was agreed upon on 30 August 2003. So far, this new system for approving exports has never been used.

The WTO decision was controversial among experts, trade negotiators, public health groups, not only because it was considered procedurally complex and burdensome, but also because it provided an “opt-out” provision that bars some 33 countries from using the mechanism, even in a case of a public health emergency. This was rarely reflected in the news coverage of the final deal.

The following link provides a comparison of various news reports from mainstream media sources (Reuters, AP, Agence France Press, Xinhua, the Financial Times, and the BBC) and trades (Bridges, Intellectual Property Watch). Most of the stories quoted or discussed the some of the concerns held by critics of the deal, but the existence of the permanent opt-out provision received very little attention. It was briefly mentioned in the Financial Times and the Bridges Weekly Trade News Digest, but ignored by all the other media outlets.


www.cptech.org/ip/wto/p6/wtoreporting-table.html