Wall Street Journal | November 13, 2001 | By GEOFF WINESTOCK and HELENE COOPER, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
DOHA, Qatar -- In a landmark shift that overturns seven years of trade law, negotiators at the World Trade Organization were late Monday wrapping up a deal that will place the rights of poor countries to import and export cheap generic drugs over the rights of multinational drug companies seeking to protect their patents.
Trade envoys were still haggling over the final details of the agreement. But in a major concession, the U.S. and European Union agreed to a pact which, at a minimum, gives developing countries a much stronger hand in bargaining with drug companies for medicines to treat HIV/AIDS and other health crises. In addition, the deal would give poor countries better access to cheap medicine for illnesses beyond AIDS, such as cancer, diabetes and even asthma. The WTO created world protection for intellectual property in 1994.
The U.S. also was poised to concede to demands from Japan and developing countries that America's hated antidumping rules be put on the table as part of a new round of trade talks.
And completing a day of backroom haggling and hallway wheeling and dealing, Europe looked increasingly likely to give ground in a dispute over farm subsidies, which has pitted it against almost every single country in the WTO. Even Japan and Korea, traditional protectionists on agriculture, announced Monday that they accepted a deal calling for cuts in farm subsidies.
Naturally, the two also were happy to announce that they also support elimination of the EU's $5 billion (5.6 billion euros) export-subsidy program. EU officials are likely to press on till the last gasp -- the meeting is supposed to wrap up Tuesday -- but its farm-subsidy program is becoming harder to defend. "The rest of the world is totally isolated on agriculture," joked Gregor Kreuzhuber, an EU agriculture spokesman.
Monday's preliminary deal making made it increasingly likely that the 142 countries in the WTO might actually come out of their meeting here with a new round of trade talks, the elusive goal of the U.S. and Europe for two years now. An overall pact would reverse the chaotic collapse of the WTO's last meeting in Seattle in 1999, which ended in tear gas, martial law, and a revolt by poor countries.
But the new round likely won't go as far as free-traders would like. The WTO was poised Monday to fob off talks on investment and competition to study groups, with no commitment to negotiate, a key demand of EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy. And U.S. Trade Rep. Robert Zoellick was still refusing to import more textiles from poor countries.
Still, Monday's preliminary agreement on drug patents shows how far the trade organization has come. "Two years ago, you never could have got anything like this in the WTO," said Jamie Love, director of Ralph Nader's Consumer Project on Technology. "This is way better than what was floated in Seattle."
The developing world wants to be able to manufacture, buy, and import cheap generics to deal with public-health pandemics, without jumping through a lot of WTO hoops first. The U.S. and EU say they are willing to make concessions for emergencies like AIDS, but don't want to weaken the WTO's strong intellectual-property-protection language to the point that poor countries can manufacture cheap generics for any illness. The issue has been a lightning rod for criticism from poor countries that say they don't benefit from global trade rules. But "developed countries realized that unless they gave something on this, they wouldn't get anything anywhere else," said Egyptian Trade Minister Youssef Boutros-Gali. Still, late Monday, India was haggling for more concessions.
Monday's draft agreement recognizes countries' "right to protect public health," placing it above the patent rights of pharmaceutical companies. The deal also gives the poorest countries a 10-year delay in implementing patent laws on drugs and allows all countries the right to decide under what circumstances they can break patents of big drug companies during public-health crises.
The agreement refers to the contentious issue of whether small countries can import generic drugs from countries such as Brazil and India to a committee. "It's too ambiguous. If a CEO of a drug company reads this, he will throw up his hands and wonder what it means," said Harvey Bale, director general of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers.
Mr. Zoellick's decision to allow negotiations on America's antidumping laws, which punish countries that "dump" products on the U.S. marketplace at below cost, is bound to provoke a firestorm in Washington. "He'll never get fast track now," said Bill Klinefelter, head of government relations with the United Steelworkers of America labor union.
For the past year, Mr. Zoellick has been trying to get fast-track authority for President George W. Bush to negotiate trade agreements that Congress can approve or reject, but not amend. But lawmakers representing the steel industry won't like the decision to put antidumping on the table, as the steel industry makes much use of America's antidumping laws.Wall Street Journal:
