World Trade Organization: Issues Involving Health Care and Intellectual Property Disputes

WTO Ministerial in Hong Kong, Hong Kong, December 13-18

CPTech Documents

December 17, 2005. Joint Statement by 17 NGOS. Statement on Need for WTO Moratorium on Regional and Bilateral Trade Agreements and Policies Undermining Access to Health.
Related Page: CPTech Page on the TRIPS Amendment Concerning the Export of Medicines Produced Under Compulsory License

Webpages Dedicated to the Ministerial

Médecins Sans Frontières Documents

December 12, 2005. WTO sacrifices access to medicines before Hong Kong ministerial meeting.
December 10, 2005. The Second Wave of the Access Crisis: Unaffordable AIDS Drug Prices... Again.

Misc. Documents

December 15, 2005. Center for Economic and Policy Research. Costs of WTO "Development Round" Could Outweign Benefits for Developing Countries.
December 10, 2005. World Health Organization. WHO Statement on International Trade and Health.

Documents and Events Leading Up to the December WTO Ministerial in Hong Kong

Documents related to the TRIPS Amendment on Exports of Goods Produced Under Compulsory License
- CPTech Statement on the TRIPS Amendment
- CPTech Page on WTO Exports of Goods Produced Under Compulsory License.
Documents Related to the Extention of Transition Period for LDCs
- November 29, 2005. CPTech. Statement on today's TRIPS council decision on the LDC TRIPS extension.
- WTO Documents
  - November 29, 2005. Tex of the Decision of the Council for TRIPS: Extension of the Transition Period Under Article 66.1 for Least-Developed Country Members.
    - MS Word format
    - html format
  - November 29, 2005. Press release. Poorest countries given more time to apply intellectual property rules.
- WTO Member Documents
  - October 21, 2005. Communication from the Delegation of Zambia on behalf of the Least-Developed Country Members. Request for an Extension of the Transitional Period Under Article 66.1 of the TRIPS Agreement.
- NGO Documents
  - November 1, 2005. Sangeeta Shashikant for the SUNS North-South Development Monitor. TRIPS Council discusses LDC request on TRIPS extension.
  - October 28, 2005. Martin Khor for the Third World Network. LDCs request exemption from TRIPS for another 15 years.
- News Stories
  - November 29, 2005. Reuters. WTO gives poorest states more time for patent rules.
  - November 29, 2005. Frances Williams for the Financial Times. WTO Extends Intellectual Property Exemption Deadline for Poorest Countries.
  - November 29, 2005. CNN. Poor Countries Win Rules Extension.
  - October 28, 2005. William New for IP Watch. TRIPS Council Issues Still Alive For WTO Ministerial.

CPTech Documents

CPTech Page on WTO Rules Concerning Exports of Goods Produced Under Compulsory License.
CPTech Page on Doha Ministerial.
December, 20, 2002. CPTech Statement on the Collapse of Doha Paragraph Six Negotiations.
November 12, 2002. Letter from James Love to Robert Zoellick on the Doha Negotiations.
May, 2002. James Love for Bridges Between Trade and Sustainable Development. (Year 6, no. 4) Access to Medicines: Solving the Export Problem under TRIPs.
January 28, 2002. Joint letter from Consumer Project on Technology, Essential Action, Medicines Sans Frontieres, Oxfam International, Health GAP Coalition, and the Third World Network to the World Trade Organization concerning TRIPS Compliant Exports Under an Article 30 General Exception.
January 21, 2001. James Love. Access To Medicine And Compliance with the WTO TRIPS Accord: Models For State Practice In Developing Countries.

Post-Cancun Developments

March 23, 2005. Africa Group. Implementation of Paragraph 11 of the August 30th Decision.

March 1, 2005. Africa Group. Legal Arguments to Support the African Group Proposal on the Implementation of Paragraph 11 of the 30 August 2003 Decision.
June 22, 2004. Bill Haddad. WTO "Celebrates" TRIPS Tenth Anniversary in Brussels this Week...
January 13, 2003. Speech by DG Trade Pascal Lamy. The relaunching of negotiations under the Doha Development Agenda.
January 12, 2004. USTR release. A Common-Sense Approach to Advance the Doha Development Agenda.
News Stories
- October 7, 2005. Inside US Trade. African Group Rejects EU TRIPS Amendment Proposal.
- January 13, 2003. Elizabeth Becker for the New York Times. U.S. Pushes to Reopen Global Talks on Trade
- January 13, 2003. New York Times Editorial. A Glimmer of Hope on Trade

Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS)

WTO Documents
- Text of the TRIPS Agreement., PDF Version, Word Version
- Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health
- WTO page on TRIPS materials. Contains WTO news items, their TRIPS fact sheet, and a page on the WTO TRIPS Council. Also contains:
  - Extension of the transition period under article 66.1 of the trips agreement for least-developed country members for certain obligations with respect to pharmaceutical products.
  - WTO document on Bolar Provisions, compulsory licensing and parallel imports.
- December 15, 2003. Statement by the Chairperson of the General Council.
- August 22, 2002. Joint report with the World Health Organization. WTO Agreements and Public Health.
- June 28, 2002. WTO press release. Council approves LDC decision with additional waiver.
Excerpt from Chapter 6 of the National Security Strategy of the United States of America, published by the White House on September 20, 2002.
Beyond market access, the most important area where trade intersects with poverty is in public health.We will ensure that the WTO intellectual property rules are flexible enough to allow developing nations to gain access to critical medicines for extraordinary dangers like HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria.
NGO Documents
- Health GAP document. Medical Apartheid: Patents, Public Health, and Access to Medicines.
- Martin Khor and Chakravarthi Raghavan for the Third World Network. WTO Secretariat explains its TRIPS ‘negotiating history.’
- Action Aid, Berne Declaration, IATP, Misereor. TRIPS on Trial: The Impact of WTO’s Patent Regime WTO’s Patent Regime On the World’s Farmers, the Poor On the World’s Farmers, the Poor and Developing Countries and Developing Countries.
- Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network. TRIPS and Rights: International Human Rights Law, Access to Medicines, and the Interpretation of the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects on Intellectual Property.

Recent WTO Meetings

CPTech Page on Doha Paragraph Six Negotiatons
CPTech Page on the TRIPS Council Meeting, March 5-7. 2002.
CPTech Page on Doha Ministerial.
CPTech Page on the TRIPS Council Meeting, September 19, 2001.
CPTech Page on the TRIPS Council Meeting, June 20, 2001.
CPT page on the WTO/WHO Workshop on Essential Drugs, April 8, Hosbjor. This meeting was organized by the Global Health Council. Its focus was on differential pricing of pharmaceuticals.

WTO Country Disputes Relating to Health Care and Intellectual Property

Information on the US/Brazil case before the WTO Dispute Settlement Body.
May 5, 2000, WTO Panel Report,WT/DS170/R-Canada-Patent protection of Pharmaceuticals, Complaint by the United States (Part 1), (Part 2)
March 17, 2000, WTO Panel Report, WT/DS114/R-Canada-Patent Protection of Pharmaceutical Products Complaint by the European Communities and their Member States
August 24, 1998, WTO Panel Report, WTO/DS79/R-India-Patent Protection of Pharmaceutical and Agricultural Chemical Products
Overview of the State-of-play of WTO Disputes (general)

WTO 1999 Ministerial Meeting, Seattle

December 2, 1999 MSF, HAI, CPT Press statement- Seattle.
December 2, 1999, CPT statement on draft Common Working Paper of the EC, Hungary, Japan, Korea, Switzerland and Turkey to the Seattle Ministerial Declaration, as it relates to the TRIPS agreement and access to drugs.
December 1, 1999, President Clinton Announces New Cooperative Effort To Help Poor Countries Gain Access To Affordable Medicines,Including For HIV/AIDS Treatment.
December 1, 1999 USTR Press Release on The Protection of Intellectual Property and Health Policy.
November 26, 1999 Amsterdam Statement To WTO Member States On Access To Medicine.
November 8, 1999 MSF, HAI, CPT open letter to WTO member states regarding access to medical technologies.

Miscellaneous

April 9, 2007. Op-ed by Anuradha Rajivan in the Times of India. NRIs! 10 Years No Minimum Balance!
June 17, 2005. Inside U.S. Trade. WTO Members Make No Headway on TRIPS as EU Proposal Still Held Up.
May 27, 2005. Inside U.S. Trade. U.S. Cool to Compromise Aimed at Resolving TRIPS and Health Fight.
April 4, 2005. Sangeeta Shashikant for the South-North Development Monitor (SUNS). Heated discussions as TRIPS and Health deadline is missed.
March 31, 2005. William New for IP Watch. TRIPS Public Health Amendment Deadline Missed.
March 21, 2005. William New for IP Watch. Talks On TRIPS and Health Stall As Deadline Nears.
January 9, 2003. Victor Youmbi for Open Democracy. The WTO, or how patenting crushes Africans - From Cameroon, a passionate cry of protest against the global intellectual property system that holds African citizens in the chains of poverty.
February 26, 2003. Natasha McDowell for SciDev.net. WTO Patent Rules "Should Be Scrapped."
January, 2003. Aileen Kwa for Focus on the Global South. Power Politics in the WTO.
January 19, 2003. MENA News Agency. WTO director commends Egypt's support for developing nations.
2002. Joint project by the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development and the UN Conference on Trade and Development. Resource Book on TRIPS and Development: An authoritative and practical guide to the TRIPS Agreement.
December 1, 2002. Panos Institute. Patents, Pills and Public Health - Can TRIPS Deliver?
August 31, 2002. Sanjay Kumar for the British Medical Journal. Health can take precedence over trade issues, says report.
August 24, 2002. Agence France Presse. WTO, WHO urge leaders to link trade, health policy.
August 22, 2002. Robert Evans for Reuters. WTO, WHO See No Conflict in Trade Rules and Health.
May 24, 2002. Inside US Trade. Least Developed Countries Push for New Exemption to TRIPS Obligations.
March 8, 2002. Letter to the Editor of The Times by John Enderby, Vice President of the Royal Society. Unfair intellectual property rules.
March 6, 2002. Xinhuanet News Agency. WTO's Would-Be Chief Vows to Support Developing Countries.
February 3, 2002. Raymond Colitt for the Financial Times. WTO rules 'detrimental' to developing countries.
November 30, 2001. Inside U.S. Trade. Larson Expects Little Further Debate on TRIPS and Health in WTO.
November 22, 2001. Memo from Adrian Otten to UNAIDS on the Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health.
October 9, 2001. Frances Williams for the Financial Times. WTO Director General Warns on Global Trading.
September 2001. British Department for International Development background briefing. TRIPS and Development.
June, 2001. Oxfam Policy Paper. WTO Patent Rules and Access to Medicines: The Pressure Mounts.
June 22, 2001. Reuters. WTO Ruling Raises Heat in EU - U.S. Dispute. "World Trade Organization experts ruled Friday that a U.S. tax break law violated trade rules... The confidential interim ruling, if confirmed throughout lengthy WTO procedures, could set the stage for the EU to impose up to $4 billion of sanctions on U.S. exports early next year -- a move that could spark retaliation from the United States."
November 7, 1990 Gatt Decision on Thailand "Restrictions on Importation of and Internal Taxes on Cigarettes"

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