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India urges WTO members to reach consensus on TRIPS waiver proposal
Mar-03-2021

India has urged World Trade Organisation (WTO) members to reach consensus on a proposal on waiver of certain provisions in a multilateral agreement on intellectual property to deal with COVID-19 crisis, stating that one cannot continue to engage in endless discussions when millions of lives are lost to the pandemic. Brajendra Navnit, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of India to the WTO said that there is a need for concerted efforts by all the members to ensure that WTO makes a meaningful contribution to defeat COVID-19 and prove that it can indeed deliver in a crisis.

In October 2020, India and South Africa submitted a proposal suggesting a waiver for all WTO members on the implementation, application and enforcement of certain provisions of the TRIPS Agreement in relation to the prevention, containment or treatment of COVID-19. The agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights or TRIPS came into effect in January 1995. It is a multilateral agreement on intellectual property (IP) rights such as copyright, industrial designs, patents and protection of undisclosed information or trade secrets.

He said that the proponents of the proposal are ready to engage in good faith and have frank discussions on the text of the waiver, relating to both its duration and scope, in order to operationalise the waiver in the shortest possible time. he added ‘we urge the Members to reach consensus on the Waiver Proposal to ramp up production for the cause of truly ensuring fair, equitable and affordable access to COVID-19 products in a timely manner’. Navnit added that three months after the emergence of successful vaccines, the global vaccination scenario still looks grim.

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