PHA-Exchange> WTO in Cancun

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Trade talks edge closer to ending medicines row


By Richard Waddington

GENEVA, Aug 19 (Reuters) - World trade negotiators appeared to be moving towards ending a row over how to ensure poor states get access to cheap medicines, a controversy that has long dogged global free trade talks, envoys said on Tuesday. "I think we are very close. There is a good possibility (of a deal)," World Trade Organisation director-general Supachai Panitchpakdi told Reuters. Envoys said that the chief negotiator for the drugs issue, Singapore's trade ambassador Vanu Gopala Menon, had drawn up a new proposal aimed at smoothing concerns of the United States, whose major drugs companies have been suspicious of any accord. Under pressure from those companies, the United States was the only one of the WTO's 146 member countries to oppose a proposed pact late last year that could have resolved the issue. Since then the problem has festered, further souring the atmosphere at troubled trade talks where negotiators are struggling for deals on lowering
barriers to business across the global economy. At issue is how to by-pass international patent laws to allow poorer states with no pharmaceutical industry to import needed drugs -- often cheaper generic copies -- when they face major health problems such as AIDS. Washington said that the proposed pact of last December 16 was open to abuse by generic drug firms in third world countries, such as Brazil and India, who could use it to steal market share in richer developing countries or to sell so-called lifestyle remedies such as anti-impotence drug Viagra. Initially, the United States had demanded agreement on the sort of diseases that would be covered by the accord, but that was rejected by third world states as unworkable.

PROPOSED COMPROMISE

More recently, U.S. trade negotiators have focused on which countries might be eligible to make use of the patents waiver. Envoys said under a proposed compromise around 20 countries, including South Korea and some of the transition economies of eastern Europe, would voluntarily declare that they would not resort to the mechanism unless they faced a health emergency. At the same time, Menon was drawing up a statement for approval by WTO states which would cover some other U.S. demands although it would not satisfy Washington on all points. "It may not be quite as much as they (the Americans) had been seeking," said one Asian trade envoy. The statement, which would be approved in return for U.S. backing of the December 2002 accord, would include a commitment by countries to prevent drugs sold under
the system from returning to or reaching rich country markets, diplomatic sources said. There would also be an undertaking by WTO states that the system should not
be abused as well as an agreement on a system for monitoring use of the patents' waiver, they added. WTO states are racing against time to achieve breakthroughs in the global trade negotiations before a crucial ministerial meeting set for Cancun, Mexico, next month. Besides drugs, the talks have missed a series of deadlines, including in the key farm trade negotiations, and envoys say that failure to make some progress before Cancun could doom the ministerial meeting to failure. The Doha Round of free trade negotiations, launched in the Qatari capital in late 2001, is due to conclude by January 1, 2005.

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