US Proposal Seeks To Allow Non-Violation Cases Under TRIPS Agreement

By Catherine Saez

The United States confirmed its opposition to an indefinite extension of a moratorium shielding the World Trade Organization agreement on intellectual property from non-violation complaints through a paper presented to WTO members meeting today.

In a paper [pdf] submitted to the Council for the WTO Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights agreement taking place today, the US details the reason why they think non-violation complaints should be allowed under TRIPS.

Non-violation complaints refer to complaints by which a country can bring a WTO case against another country if the complainant country feels it has been deprived of expected benefits by the other country’s action, despite the fact that there is no violation of a WTO rule.

A moratorium currently applies to the WTO TRIPS agreement, preventing members from bringing non-violation complaints under TRIPS. The moratorium has been extended several times, the last time during the December Bali WTO ministerial meeting. However the Bali decision also includes a request that WTO members would try to reach an agreement on whether or not to extend the moratorium indefinitely, or allow non-violation complaints under TRIPS by the next ministerial conference in 2015.

The US and Switzerland are opposing an indefinite extension of the moratorium. Developing countries are worried that such non-violation complaints could restrict flexibilities they negotiated under TRIPS. An example of a flexibility is the use of compulsory licensing.