TRIPS Becoming a Bargaining Chip?

The chair-select for the World Trade Organization's (WTO) TRIPS Council, Ambassador Pimchanok Pitfield of Thailand, suggested linking issues in the TRIPS agreement with other areas, such as agriculture, food insecurity, trade, climate change, and WTO reforms, ahead of the 13th ministerial meeting in Abu Dhabi next year, our correspondent reports.

During an informal TRIPS Council meeting, Pitfield reportedly discussed topics beyond her mandate, including those related to the Doha agriculture and trade and environment negotiating bodies, raising concerns among participants.

Pitfield linked issues in the TRIPS Council – such as extending the MC12's TRIPS Agreement to diagnostics and therapeutics and addressing non-violation situation complaints – to resolving agriculture, trade, climate change, and WTO reform issues. After making her statement, she concluded the meeting without further discussion. Members privately expressed consternation over Pitfield's statements and concerns that she is adopting a top-down rather than bottoms-up approach.

During the meeting, positions between proponents for extending the decision of MC12 to diagnostics and therapeutics and opponents advocating for an evidence-based approach to demonstrate that intellectual property rights are not a barrier to access seemed to harden. The United States continues to insist it cannot choose a side until the International Trade Commission completes its investigation.

Paragraph 8 of the MC12 Ministerial Decision on the TRIPS Agreement adopted on June 17, 2022, states that members will decide on its extension to cover COVID-19 diagnostics and therapeutics production and supply within six months. In December, the WTO General Council recommended extending the December 17 deadline, but five months later, no progress appears to have been made, according to participants at the WTO's TRIPS Council meeting.