Geneva: After an impasse of more than one year in the Council for Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Council), World Trade Organization (WTO) Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala today supported an informal group of ministers to come together around a proposal for an intellectual property response to COVID-19.
The WTO Director-General put forward the outcome document that emerged from the informal process conducted with the Quad (the European Union, India, South Africa and the United States) for an intellectual property response to COVID-19.
The proposal was immediately shared by the new chair of the Council for Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), Ambassador Lansana Gberie of Sierra Leone, with the full membership, after an informal meeting of the Council held this morning where he introduced the highlights of the text.
The proposal will now go for consideration by the 164 WTO members.
Working with Deputy Director-General Anabel González, DG Okonjo-Iweala said the Quad document “could be a meaningful proposal without prejudice to their respective positions, that could provide a platform to be built upon by the membership”.
In their discussions, the Quad adopted a problem-solving approach aimed at identifying practical ways of clarifying, streamlining and simplifying how governments can override patent rights, under certain conditions, to enable diversification of production of COVID-19 vaccines.
– global bihari bureau
