LDC Coordinator Thanks WTO For ‘Accountability To Humanity’ On Pharma IP

Last week’s decision by a World Trade Organization committee to allow least-developed countries to not apply global IP rules for pharmaceuticals for 17 more years made WTO members accountable to humanity, the coordinator of the LDC Group has said. Pharmaceuticals are different from all other forms of IP, he said.

“Our Ministers in 2001 understood well that pharmaceuticals are distinct from all other elements of IP and if a man is suffering from a deadly disease, he would not be cured by reading a copyright protected book or by watching a copyright protected movie,” Shameem Ahsan, the Bangladesh ambassador and coordinator of the LDC Group, said in a statement to the Council. “Human life is something that came only as a gift from heaven and we are in no way permitted to endanger it by any means. Our decision today will help us with our accountability towards the humanity.”

The WTO Council for Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) on 6 November agreed to the LDC request for an extension of a waiver, giving them 17 more years (IPW, WTO/TRIPS, 8 November 2015).

“[T]his decision will assure the least developed countries the necessary legal certainty to procure or to produce generic medicines for those who need it most but do not have any access to it,” he said.

LDCs had sought an indefinite extension to apply to countries until they no longer had LDC status. But the United States stood firm in opposition, arguing for a time-limited extension, as indicated in TRIPS. The EU and many others had supported the LDC request for an indefinite extension.