Telf:www.wto.org/english/res_e/publications_e/ai17_e/trips_art31_bis_oth.pdf During the negotiations, the United States and the European Commission attempted to push higher-income countries to withdraw from the agreement as importers. James Love, Director, Knowledge Ecology International “In 2003, the WTO concluded negotiations to correct a known error in the TRIPS agreement. The ability to obtain a compulsory license for a patent depends on the ability to obtain a product from a competitive supplier, for example. B in the case of drugs, a company that sells generic versions. It will not always be possible for a supplier capable of making something to be established in your own country, and even if there is one, it may not be able to meet local demand or work effectively. Access to know-how is often important, especially when time is of the essence. Economies of scale are not a small subject that can be forgotten after the first economic class. If you want affordable medicines, vaccines and affordable testing, the ability to export and import is part of the solution. It is absolutely outrageous that 37 WTO members have not given themselves the right to import, even in the event of a health emergency. This needs to be addressed for the current pandemic and for the next health crisis that will certainly one day follow. In 2001, the World Trade Organization (WTO) opened negotiations on patent and access rules. While several issues were resolved and resolved in the Doha DECLARATION on TRIPS and Public Health of November 2001, it took almost two more years for the negotiations to be adopted on 30 August 2003, a decision that constituted a “limited export restriction waiver” for drugs and diagnostic tests manufactured under compulsory licence.
The final resolution was complicated. Controversial features included the definition of an “eligible import member,” which allowed WTO members to declare themselves ineligible in some or all cases. In 2017, this decision became a formal amendment to the TRIPS agreement. Today, 37 WTO members are allowed not to import drugs into another country under compulsory license, including the governments of Australia, Canada, Iceland, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union, including the following Member States: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden.