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Poor states wring out concessions
15/11/2001 18:02 - (SA)
Doha - Developing countries emerged with several big gains from a
just-concluded World Trade Organisation conference here, winning
concessions on key points from the United States and the European
Union.
Though they came to the Doha meeting deeply sceptical about the chances of making their voices heard, they nonetheless managed to make their presence felt.
Speaking for Africa, Kenyan Commerce Minister Mustafa Bello said at a final plenary session that the continent was "satisfied with
the conclusions that have been drawn".
"Unlike in Seattle, Africa has been satisfied with all the
stages of consultations."
At a previous WTO conference in Seattle in December 1999
developing countries were angered at what they said had been their
exclusion from critical discussions.
Unlike the Seattle meeting, which collapsed in failure, WTO
ministers meeting here managed to overcome internal divisions in
six days of gruelling negotiations to launch a new round of
multilateral trade liberalisation talks.
By any account the sweetest victory for developing countries
here was an agreement that a WTO accord on patent protection does
not prevent them from manufacturing or importing cheaper, generic
medicines to combat public health scourges such as Aids.
Western nations led by the United States and Switzerland had
come to Doha insisting that WTO regulations on patent protection
should not be weakened, arguing that to do so would discourage drug
companies from investing in new medicines.
In the end a text approved here, while reiterating a commitment
to the WTO copyright protection agreement, states that it "does not
and should not" prevent WTO members from taking steps to protect
public health. That language is seen as giving developing countries
greater freedom to override drug patents in a public health crisis.
Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Lafer described the text as an
important step in responding to criticism levelled at the
Geneva-based WTO.
"The declaration doesn't change the Trips agreement at all, but
provides a new view of it which is public health-friendly," he
said.
Trips is a WTO agreement on trade-related aspects of
intellectual property rights.
Added Michael Bailey of Oxfam International: "Doha sends a
strong message that people's health overrides the interests of big
drug companies."
Elsewhere, the text approved here opens the door to the eventual
elimination of agricultural export subsidies offered by the EU and
to a lesser extent the US.
In a section on agriculture, WTO members commit themselves to
negotiations aimed at "phasing out" export subsidies, which
according to the World Bank distort trade and harm poor countries
unable to compete with subsidised prices in global markets.
Developing countries here were also adamant in resisting EU
demands that the new round encompass negotiations on the
relationship between environmental protection and trade. Their fear
is that the West will use alleged abuses of the environment in poor
countries to block their exports.
While developing country officials were unable to head off such
negotiations entirely, they managed to secure assurances in the
text they would not irrevocably lead to tight links between trade
and the environment.
On other fronts, developing countries succeeded in getting
negotiations on steps to promote cross-border investment postponed
until after the next WTO ministerial conference in 2003.
They have balked at Western pressure to open further their
economies and financial institutions to overseas investors,
asserting that their industries are not ready to compete with
foreign rivals. - Sapa-AFP
- SAPA
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