WTO Talks Open Amid Drug Clash
Amid heightened security, trade ministers assembled today to take up the unfinished business of globalization, a task made more difficult by a range of bitter disputes, especially the one over the price poor countries must pay for patented drugs.
The 142-member nations of the World Trade Organization convened five days of talks in the heavily fortified Persian Gulf emirate of Qatar, about 750 miles from where the United States and its allies are bombing Afghanistan in retaliation for the terror attacks of Sept. 11.
U.S. Trade Representative Robert B. Zoellick arrived here promoting the idea that the WTO ministerial session is another front of that war, one directed at the poverty, despair and hatred that fuel terrorist movements.
But the potential to advance the cause of trade liberalization was jeopardized by standoffs over issues dividing rich and poor nations, known as the North-South dispute. As the conference opened, no issue loomed larger than Third World access to affordable drugs.
“This will be an issue that will cause a lot of long hours,” WTO Director General Michael Moore acknowledged to reporters. He said the “differences were so profound” on drug patents that WTO leaders could not even come up with proposed compromise language for delegates to consider.
Trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights, or TRIPS, have the potential to become a deal-breaker, thwarting efforts by Zoellick and his European counterpart, Pascal Lamy, to persuade WTO members to launch a fourth broad round of global trade liberalization talks, threatening global economic growth.
“If the world’s richest countries cannot even put the health of the world’s poorest people ahead of the interests of a handful of drug companies, there is not much hope of a comprehensive deal on trade in Doha,” said Phil Twyford of Oxfam International, a relief organization. The intellectual property issue “is going to be the litmus test of that political will.”
India, Brazil and a coalition of African countries want the WTO to declare that countries can override patents to obtain lower-cost, generic equivalents to combat AIDS, malaria, pneumonia and other public health menaces. Under an agreement signed in 1994, WTO members agreed to extend 20-year patent protection to all forms of technology, including medicine.
The United States, backed by other countries with big pharmaceutical industries, says poor countries already have all the flexibility they need to get affordable drugs to deal with pandemics such as AIDS. It has offered to give the poorest countries 10 more years to come into compliance with the 1994 accord, but it opposes a permanent exception that would be available to any country that claimed it faced a health crisis.
In a private meeting with Latin American and Caribbean delegates Thursday afternoon, Zoellick said the United States favors a strong declaration of the right of developing countries to get low-cost drugs to deal with true emergencies.
“But I also pointed out the danger,” he said after the session. “If we broaden this to an exception that allows us to do away with the rule, we’re going to undermine the ability to develop hundreds and hundreds of drugs in the United States that might actually cure these problems.”
Thursday’s discussion was one of several scheduled by Zoellick in an effort to bridge the gap between affluent, industrialized nations and poorer developing countries that now represent about 80% of the WTO’s membership. He planned to meet today with African delegates, then with representatives of Southeast Asian nations.
“It’s important to reach out,” he said. “These are individuals. As you get to know them and get a sense of how they can work together, that can sometimes help you to solve problems. There’s no doubt that there are going to be some late-night sessions.”
Although the dispute over drug patents appeared to pose the biggest immediate threat to the WTO conference, other issues have the potential to snag the process. Countries that are exporters of farm products want to eliminate agricultural subsidies, but Europe and Japan are resisting. The United States is under fire for blocking imports of low-cost steel by claiming that foreign manufacturers are dumping at less than the cost of production. Europe wants the WTO to endorse its efforts to require “eco-labeling” of genetically altered foods and to restrict imports if it perceives a health risk, even if can’t prove one. Many developing countries want to revisit commitments made in the last big trade agreement in 1994, saying they have not realized many of the benefits they were promised, including the lowering of barriers to their textile and apparel exports.
Unless those differences can be resolved, WTO officials fear the meeting in Doha could repeat the failure of the last ministerial conference two years ago in Seattle, where efforts to launch a new round of trade-liberalization talks were denounced by thousands of anti-globalization protesters.
In Doha, there is not a whiff of protest. Concerned about security risks after the Sept.11 attacks, the government of Qatar has deployed more than 5,000 military personnel, some dressed in camouflage and carrying assault rifles, to maintain order. No public demonstrations are being allowed, and the government has severely restricted the number of nongovernmental organizations that can send representatives to Doha.
On Wednesday, a military guard shot and killed a civilian who had driven up to a checkpoint at a U.S. air base and opened fire on security personnel. But Qatari officials said that the gunman had a history of mental disorders, and that the attack had nothing to do with the geopolitics of global trade.
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Trade bill: A House vote could come as early as next week. A38
