 Hello, everyone. Welcome to People's Dispatch. So the World Trade Organization had its ministerial conference last week, which concluded on Friday. And this conference was to take place in November, but had to be postponed because of Omicron variant that emerged at that point of time. So finally, the meeting happened. And it was a meeting which was being looked forward to by everyone in the health sector across the world, because it was going to discuss something which we have been working on everyone has been working on for the past almost two years, 18 months to be precise. And that is the trips waiver. So the ministerial conference had to discuss this very important issue. Just to give you a brief trips waiver. This was a proposal that had been forwarded by India and South Africa, the two governments in October 2020 in the World Trade Organization in the midst of a raging pandemic. And both the countries asked the World Trade Organization that all types of intellectual property, be it patents, be it copyrights, be it trade secrets, they should be waived off for all medical products related to COVID-19. That could be medicines or vaccines or even ventilators, diagnostics, everything. The text, the final text after the ministerial conference, the decision that has come out is not so close to what India and South Africa had proposed in October 2020. This is what we are going to discuss today. We have with us Boba Kumar, K. M. Boba Kumar, who's a legal researcher from a third world network and a very well known access to medicines activist who has been following patents and trade secrets and other intellectual property in the health sector for decades now. And we are going to, we will expect, ask him to unfold what happened at the ministerial conference and why didn't we have the text that we have now? Boba, welcome to people's dispatch. So obviously my first question is going to be, how do you read the text that has come out, the final decision that has come out from the ministerial conference of the World Trade Organization? The text which has, or the text or the decision which is part of the 12 ministerial conference basically addresses a small issue that is the facilitation of export under a compulsory license. Article 31 F of the TRIPS agreement normally restrict the export of any products which is produced under a compulsory license only predominantly for domestic use. So that means countries who do not have the capacity to produce a pharmaceutical product, including vaccines cannot obtain a vaccine or a therapeutics under a compulsory license produced from elsewhere, because that country cannot export exclusively for another country. But this issue was resolved in 2005 through an amendment, earlier it was a waiver in 2003. So this is called 31 F of the TRIPS agreement, but the process involved to avail that facility that means process involved to produce an export for dominant portion of the QNN, another country under article 31 and this involves cumbersome procedures. So till now only there is a one example of invoking article 31 F. So this decision reduces some of the conditions under article 31 F and facilitate any portion you can export under a producer under a compulsory license. So to that extent, the scope of this decision is very limited. First to the only to the vaccines and second, the freedom of operation you are obtaining under this decision is limited. It is only for the to facilitate the export under a compulsory license. So in a way it cures some of the problems involved or cumbersome procedures involved in the article 31 F. So only to that extent, it's a it's an important step. But otherwise, this does not offer anything new to provide a freedom of operation, which goes beyond the existing flexibilities. No, it doesn't go that extent, though the original proposal by the India as well as South African, and I would say that all 63 other 63 cost sponsors goes beyond the existing flexibilities, but this decision fails to go to that extent. And it's that's where that's where this decision is very limited in scope. So basically what India and South Africa had asked for is waiver of all types of intellectual property for all types of medical products, but what we have bought is only patents to be waved only for the vaccines, and that also not in an ideal form. Because the trips agreement and some provisions were already allowing it more or less. Yeah, this, this decision based article 31 F that's obligation to article 31 F that means, now you have the freedom to export any portion of what you produced under a compulsory license. The second is clarify certain provisions of the agreement, including obligations under 39.3 which deals with the trade secret article 39.3 basically obligates countries to keep the information contained in the drug dosiers or vaccine dosiers as a trade secret. There are two exceptions to protect public or, or to avoid after taking measures against unfair commercial use you can disclose there are these are the two exceptions, right. These are existing but nobody has used, but this decision also clarifies that nothing in 39.3 prevents you to enable the effectiveness of this, this decision that means, if you issue a compulsory license. The regulatory agency can even share the drug vaccine dosiers or the drug dosiers so in this case it's vaccine dosiers to another company and facilitate production so this is an additional classification which is given in the decision. So what does this decision mean in practical sense which are the countries who will be export or not being able to export. We're hearing about China that China will not be able to make use of trips waiver so can you clarify that point for us a little bit. That footnote which specifically targets China by stating that whoever, whoever declared known use of the decision on 10th of May are bound by that and other countries are also encouraged to do so. So, this is a kind of a contradiction the whole idea of this decision is to facilitate export under a compulsory license, but the footnote says. The countries who are having the capacity is encouraged not to use it. So, we should understand that only a few countries are having especially a few developing countries are having the manufacturing capability in the vaccine space, and when they are encouraged to pop out then who is going to export. We like to wait and see, and this export should take place not only with the political will of one country which would like to get it imported, but it's also like many other factors like economy of scale. There should be sufficient orders, and then somebody who are having the manufacturing capability to be able to export. So, the practical use of this is that heavily depending upon the, not only politically but the economy of scale. So therefore we like to wait and see, but I am saying that there is a contradiction in the footnote one, which basically encourages countries who are having the capacity to opt out. So that contradicts with the very objective of the decision. So, we saw the negotiations born for approximately 18 months. I would like to ask you what was happening at the backstage because we have been following this issue. How were the developed countries, a few of them were able to actually suppress the demand of more than 100 developing countries to come to a much more radical conclusion. From where we had to start it, I mean, we reached a disaster text, it seems like that W2U and W2U has actually kneeled to the big pharma and profiteering of the big pharma. But what was happening at the backstage if we can explain a bit. I think the pressure was mounting slowly and steadily for a waiver. What is in research in the original proposal. But at the same time we are also be realistic in the sense that you may not get what all you want but to an extent where it is workable, right. So we all know that that's a reality of any negotiation especially forums like WTO. But around November 2021 it became very clear that without a decision on waiver, nothing is going to move forward in WTO, especially the EU style of WTO's response to pandemic. So it became very clear and the WTO ministerial was cancelled that time due to the outbreak of new variant. And then the DG that's the secret rate to an initiative involving four countries known as now thought that involves you US, India and South Africa. This process continued for four months and resulted in the text which was leaked in around first week of March and or second week of March and then we saw the slightly modified version of the text came out or table by the DG around third of May. The text based negotiations was based on that DG's text, we started on 17th of May and continued for a month, almost a month. The negotiation continued and we have this decision. So when you look at the context to now there is not much major changes. There are changes which are, which are from a developing and deep perspective removed much of the damages involved in the text. The earlier text involved many provisions which goes beyond the current obligations under the DG. That has been removed in many places, but there are a few areas it still remains, but what went wrong from a developing and deep perspective is the thought process. So, India and South Africa involved in the court process and we produce this text which is by a lot based on the use demand, you please recall, you also table the text around June for further discussions, but it was not a waiver it was based on a compulsory license in certain provisions of the compulsory license provisions. So, this text is the architecture of this or the structure of this text is based on the EU proposal. The court process basically resulted in silencing of India and South Africa during the text based negotiation. I would say they did speak but the proactively engaging in the text. It seems that the context is below minimum below the expectations of the, you know, when you when you look at the revised proposal of the developing countries, the 63 or 65 cost sponsors, it is below that expectation. So, naturally, we expect that these two, what he called the, the, the sponsors of these origin originals sponsors of this text would proactively engage proposes the language to improve the level of the text to a new level or to the expectation. And that did not happen because both these countries voluntarily kept silence, saying that they participated in the court process so they are not in a position to suggest new language. That way I think it was a trap the court process which basically bought silence from India and South Africa, and that resulted in a text which is, you know, a highly skewed text, which I say the utility which I mentioned to you is only reduces certain elements of certain elements of even this comparison procedures. Yeah. Right, right. This is the green room the famous green room tactics as we know where countries get silenced and obviously it is usually the developing countries. But if we zoom out a little bit, we also know that there were many other proposals on table at the WTO, they were related to agriculture or fisheries and the others. Do you think those negotiations and would have also mattered saying that you can get something in the fisheries do not push for the trips paper in the health sector. Did that also happen at the level of ministerial in that week in the last week. I don't think so. There might be exchanges happening with the other other areas but you know the way the text was not worth to exchange for something else at that stage you know when the ministerial it is already watered down the text so no sensible country would exchange their key interest in the area of agriculture or even fisheries for a trips waiver. So, so we were headed to this text anyways, that's what you would need. But, but so what we have now is that after two years of hard work by a lot of activists and civil society and people and support of more than 100 countries from across the world, and seeing the kind of disaster that we saw during the pandemic because of lack of access to medical tools, despite all of that buildup despite all of that mobilization from the common people, and led by health movements. We have a text which does not really help us improve the situation at all. Is the road ahead for the common people and for the activists in the civil society now. How do we come together because this has created at one level, a lot of expectations among common people also what can be done. But what is the road ahead, according to you. So we ended up in a student text and it's a matter of disappointment for most of us involved in the process but I would say, you know, as an activist, I am eternally optimistic, and we all are, you know, share that optimism to what is this 18 months achieved. First, it conveyed a clear message that the there is nothing sacrosanct about the troops agreement, and if the agreement needs to be critiqued, and it needs to be debased in the coming days, you know with more campaigning and more push for that and there is no need to accept the agreement as it is, and there is a need for it clearly shows that the intellectual property can not only patents, but the trade secret, the copyright, and even the same can affect the access to health care. That's our first point. Second point, it forced you US and many other developed countries who were critic of using trips flexibilities to say that please use flexibilities you don't need waiver you can use the flexibilities right. Third, yeah. And third, it exposed the how the regulatory system rigged in favor of in favor of big companies and protecting their trade secret in the name of protecting quality and safety and efficacy of vaccines and biotherapeutics. So, these are some of the key learnings from the process, but we also notice that the our own developing country governments need to understand this in a better way. And they should understand the fact that whatever maybe the human crisis, the farmer is not going to bring its eyes and the government support them is not going to agree even for an humanitarian ground. So that means, politically, our governments needs to build our own local production capacities, our own science and technology capacities, and to create a favorable enabling favorable or enabling environment to maintain that capacity. So the conventional trade theory that okay you can get the medicine wherever it is achieved by do you maintain this is being seriously questioned. Yeah, these are the takeaways for me in the coming days. Perfect. Thank you, and yes, to more work at the global level at the national level. And I think we need to continue working on all forms of intellectual property, and I agree with you that we have been talking a lot about patents but how other kinds of intellectual property can damage and equitable response is something that a lot in the health movement have learned over the last two years and hopefully we will keep working towards it. Thank you again for being with us. And we hope that you will continue your fight. It's not my fight I think we all need to carry our struggles and our campaigning at the national level and then come to the global level I think we'll be able to change the thing and with one decision the fight never or the struggle. That's not end here. I think it will lead to I'm sure it will lead to more organized and more more strong, you know, struggle in the coming days because we are better informed now what are these days are up to. We know the policy behind the intellectual property rights and its implications on access. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for being with us and sharing your important.