World Trade Organisation President Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala at a meeting of G20 finance and health ministers at the Salone delle Fontane in October. Photo / Alessandra Tarantino, AP
World Trade Organisation President Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala at a meeting of G20 finance and health ministers at the Salone delle Fontane in October. Photo / Alessandra Tarantino, AP
OPINION
In a week's time, the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the peak body that makes global trade rules, will hold its 12th Ministerial Conference in Geneva.
Centre stage is the issue of intellectual property rights and access to life-saving vaccines, technologies and supplies – a subject that's not a genuinetrade issue, but one that is captive of the WTO's Agreement on Trade-related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) that was nevertheless adopted in 1995.
The WTO has been here before, with Big Pharma's usurous pricing of HIV-AIDs treatments to the world's poorest 20 years ago. This time it is even more serious.
Oxfam reported last week that 98 per cent of people in low-income countries are still not fully vaccinated for Covid-19. Yet, Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna are earning a combined $1000 every second selling their Covid-19 vaccines mainly to a handful of wealthy countries.
Pfizer and Moderna are expected to take in a combined US$93 billion next year on vaccine sales alone.
Governments that funded much of their research are the main buyers, who are hoarding vaccines and issuing booster shots. Yet Big Pharma refuses to share its recipes to enable production of generics to vaccinate the bulk of the world and transfer associated technologies to regional production hubs.
Sixty-four developing countries have proposed a waiver of the TRIPS intellectual property rights at least temporarily to address the Covid-19 pandemic. That has been endorsed by over 100 countries. But a year later it still sits on the table, blocked by the European Union (EU), United Kingdom (UK) and Switzerland with support from their big pharmaceutical lobbies. The United States supports the waiver but has not actively campaigned for its adoption.
New Zealand has also endorsed the waiver, but the involvement of Ambassador to the WTO, David Walker, is seen as undermining its success. Dr Walker has been appointed, in his "personal capacity", to faciliate a process to find "a multilateral and horizontal response to the Covid-19 pandemic".
This appointment was made without consulting the WTO members. The "Walker process" has become mired in controversy for its lack of transparency and invitation to hand-picked participants that sidelines effective participation by poorer countries that are seriously affected.
The substance is equally controversial. This "Trade and Health Initiative" has become a Trojan Horse for a broad liberalisation agenda that was developed by the "Ottawa Group" of countries, including New Zealand, to promote WTO reform. It excludes the waiver and any intellectual property rights barriers to a speedy and equitable pandemic recovery.
There has been a groundswell of objection to these developments internationally. The European Parliament has passed two resolutions urging the EU to participate actively in text-based negotiations on the TRIPS waiver. Former Heads of State and Nobel Laureats, international jurists, international trade unions, and coalitions of human rights groups have urged action and highlighted states' violations of their international human rights obligations.
Last week I wrote to our ministers of trade and foreign affairs explaining these objections to the "Walker process" and urging them to intercede to advance a more balanced and equitable outcome. I passed on warnings from Geneva that this was seriously damaging New Zealand's reputation and jeopardising future appointments of our representatives to positions in the WTO. I have received no reply.
Jane Kelsey. Photo / Supplied, File
What does this mean for the future of the WTO? This pandemic-related crisis comes at a time when the organisation is already on life support. There are deep divisions between rich and poor countries - the former want new rules that will entrench their advantage, as seen with the Ottawa Group, while the latter want to level the global playing field.
All three of the WTO's core functions (negotiations, monitoring, and dispute settlement) are paralysed.
The WTO's champions, New Zealand high among them, are desperate for a "successful" Ministerial Conference. But the WTO makes decisions by consensus. At present, there seems no prospect of an outcome, including from the "Walker process", without a waiver to which the EU, UK and Switzerland remain implaccably opposed.
Unless countries such as New Zealand step up to the plate, rein in the rogue Walker process", confront the abuse of intellectual property rules in the name of "trade" and deliver real outcomes to address this and future pandemics that, the ministerial seems destined to fail and the WTO will be plunged into even deeper crisis.
• Jane Kelsey is a professor of law at the University of Auckland.
