 Hello, everyone. Welcome to the People's Health Dispatch interview this week. Today we are joined by Thiru Balasubramanian, who is a well-known health activist known to follow up on the issues of research and development, intellectual properties, and their influence on access to medicines and medical products. Today, Thiru will be talking to us about the recently concluded Waipo Assembly, the general concerns on issues of intellectual property rights, and the recent session of Human Rights Council that adopted a resolution on access to medicines, vaccines, and other health products. Thank you, Thiru, for joining us. Thank you, Gargay. You know, in the last two years, you know, we have been talking a lot about intellectual property rights, and there have been many campaigns on the issue of intellectual property rights as a barrier to accessing medical products, in particular in the COVID pandemic, in the recent times. Do you see any change in the working and the position of organizations such as Waipo, which have been created to protect and promote intellectual property, towards the agenda of equity and development? So, I think that's a very good question, Gargay, so I think it deserves a considered and perhaps complex response, but I think one thing to note about Waipo is that just for people who might not know about it, it is the, it stands for the World Intellectual Property Organization, and it is a specialized agency of the United Nations, and just for example how the World Health Organization is tasked with, let's say, promoting and safeguarding public health. Waipo is the UN agency that was basically created to promote and protect intellectual property, and as I understand it only actually became a UN agency in 1967. Prior to that, it was more of a private organization. It's quite interesting to see is that over the last decade or so, you've seen Waipo engage in this so-called trilateral cooperation with WTO and WHO. So in that context, yes, you could say that they've probably engaged in some work in the COVID-19 response. However, I can point you to a time very early on in, well, in the COVID pandemic, actually at the end of 2020, in December, let's say. And there was a meeting of the Standing Committee on the Law of Patents, and one of the standing items they discussed is the issue of patents and health. And this was about two months after India and South Africa introduced their proposal for a trips waiver at the WTO. And I remember the delegate from Zimbabwe being very frustrated in one of the discussions saying, you know, why are we watching, there's a feeling that we're watching at the sidelines where our colleagues at WTO are really engaging. So in that sense, you know, there is a perception that perhaps certainly Waipo could do more. In the recently held Waipo Assembly, there has been discussion for an agreement on intellectual properties, genetic resources and traditional knowledge associated with genetic resources. Could you elaborate on what this is and, you know, is there a chance that it will improve access to various products and various, you know, sectors, including the medical and health related issues? Yeah, I think I would want to be quite careful in answering that. So with respect to accessing medical products, I think that's a tough one. I think one to answer, I think generally the sort of concerns that many developing countries have with respect to genetic resources or associated traditional knowledge is, you know, in many instances, what this instrument would seek to do would be to create a mandatory disclosure requirement whereby if I was a patent holder or some sort of prospector or something, if I went to the Amazon or, you know, some region, especially in the developing world, if I was applying for patents and it derived from these genetic resources that in the patent application, it would say this is derived from a genetic resource based in Uganda or Kerala or, you know, and actually in this negotiation, typically it's kind of interesting. So countries like, I would say developed countries such as Australia and New Zealand, maybe I think partly because of their home to, you know, a sizable indigenous population. They've been actually more sensitive to these demands of developing countries because I should say this that in a lot of these negotiations, it's not just developing countries who are the demonstrators. Oftentimes, it's indigenous communities, local communities and indigenous peoples who are pushing for this. And so there's this issue about whether this disclosure requirement should it be mandatory or not. And so I would, even in a country like Switzerland, I think, you know, which is a home to large pharmaceutical companies, I think they're actually supportive of it. It's, I think there's really one major holdout, I would say, and that would be the United States of America. But getting to what happened the last week, it was quite remarkable, I would say, that basically this, as I mentioned to you, this is something that's been, you know, been on the cards for at least two decades. And it was basically a proposal by the African group, what they sought to do was to link the work program, leading to a diplomatic conference for this, an instrument on genetic resources and associated traditional with something completely unrelated on a design law treaty and that's something that is really been called for by many European countries, especially Central and European in the Baltic States. And so what they did was it was kind of a, you can crudely describe as horse trading but they were smart they linked to unrelated items. And they basically so basically in the work program of both you see something like there should be a diplomatic conference no later than 2024 and sort of the political dynamic that sort of they engendered this was the fact that in the General Assembly in this you hardly ever see or at least I have hardly ever seen, there were at least three votes, all related with Ukraine, about an item related to providing technical assistance to Ukraine. And because there was a lot of political capital used on that vote, then on this, these normative items the African group presented it. And even though like typically, because typically you need consensus. But, and even if some countries were reluctant, then the African group actually said, well, you know, they were very open to calling for a vote, and then countries buckled under that pressure, I would say. So that was a very well played. It is true I should mention though that the United States did not join consensus, however, they did not block it. So what that means, I would say to our listeners is that the work is still going to go on and that it'll be. Yeah, you could have quite a lot of implications. So I think it's something that let's say the watchers and the people's health movement should maybe engage in because it's going to be quite a big deal. Going beyond the WIPO, we also see that there was a recent resolution on access to medicines that was access to medicines, vaccines and other health products at the Human Rights Council, which was adopted. Could you please speak about this and why is it important because, you know, in Geneva, we see in the Geneva based UN agencies we see, as I was already telling, it also looks like there is this increased understanding and awareness about the role of this public research and development and intellectual properties and access because we went through a round of huge vaccine inhibitors. Would you talk on this? At the Human Rights Council, there's a group called the core group. And I don't think many people know about it, you know, unless you're following this quite closely. This core group consists of the following countries, Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Senegal, South Africa and Thailand. And basically 20 years ago prior to the Human Rights Council, there was this Human Rights Commission. You know, right around like you mentioned 2001. So right around that time, actually, the United States brought a WTO dispute case against Brazil on a local working requirement. And actually, this was around the time of Doha just before Doha and then Brazil launched another case against the United States. But one thing that was interesting and I've done some research on it and it was reported at the time, this initiative at the Human Rights Commission. It was in a way of sort of a softer way to build sort of support to this issue of equity and access to medicines and bringing attention to the pattern barriers. So fast forward to 2022. So typically I would say from my memory, I think it's about every three years. The core group brings a resolution on access to medicines and at the Human Rights Council and typically at the Human Rights Council, things are adopted by consensus. It's like if there is a vote that's not a good sign that really like it's perceived as like, so if you're citing a document and it's one that had a vote, it doesn't carry the same way. The Human Rights Council is very different actually and so if let's say one has access to the Palais des Nations with the badge. Yes, you can enter the informals as they don't call them drafting groups. But you can go to the informals and you can participate like you can just observe and watch and say nothing or if you want to, you can even raise your hand and say things. So in 2016, I would just try to give you the context. The reason why it was such a contentious year was that it was the year that in September 14th, the UN United Nations high level panel on access to medicines under Ban Ki-moon. That's when they released their report, but this was a few months earlier. So there was a lot of tension about this report and it was quite amazing because this is the Human Rights Council, right? And yet there were negotiators so and I remember because in that particular time I went to all three informals and there was a part, there's a passage when countries were quoting let's say the core group, they had a reference to the impact of high prices and let's say patents or intellectual property on access. Well, what I remember is Switzerland actually like said, let's strike that up. And in 2016, so then I raised my hand and I said, you know, something like this, I said, you know, it's interesting that, you know, trade ministers in 2001 were okay with this language and that the Human Rights Council, there seems to be a problem. And so immediately after that, I think maybe because I mentioned Doha actually the member state Qatar raised their hand and said we support what this NGO said. And I don't know if it was just about me, but like the point is at the end that reference, I believe was retained. But that's just to give you just one example of, you know, how contentious it was and it was, you know, the EU and the UK, in particular, I thought were quite bad in that particular, in that particular year. So this year, you know, of course, you know, this is in the context of COVID. It was in and it was also interesting because, you know, typically you expect I expect at least there to be some contentious parts about intellectual property and which is interesting because the core group, they're not trying to reinvent the wheel or you know, like they use existing language, they're very careful. And yet, even then, certain countries like the US and others were saying, you know, this selective quotations, some new points of contention were this. So there was a part initially in the resolution that referred to international principle of international solidarity. And the European Union objected to that, like quite and what's fun that because, you know, that's kind of surprising because, you know, in the past, in the early days of the pandemic, the president of the, you know, like Ursula von der Leyen talked about solidarity so that that was kind of interesting. Oh, and then there was a very specific reference to an inequality in equity within and among states, and the EU really objected to that they didn't want there to be a reference to discuss the inequality between and among states. So, I will say this, one thing is that eventually, though, this resolution was passed with with consensus. So in that sense, I would say that was a, you know, that was like, at least acknowledging and step in the right direction that there is an issue here in the context of medicine. As we come a bit towards the closing of the end of this interview, you know, can we rightly say that the last two years also brought serious discussions on intellectual properties as a barrier. You know, you have been following these issues from the last 20 odd years, very keenly and definitely a bit earlier also on the issues of medicines and trade and patents and intellectual property. You know, how should we see this phase is there a renewal of activism and renewal of push against, you know, these barriers that, you know, where profits are have been becoming more important than people says then, you know, how do you see, not just technically but more like, as groups fighting on these issues. Yes, I would say that in terms of bringing to the public for certainly in the last two years in the just daily newspapers, not even specialist trade publications or health journals, it's true that this issue of IP and access, you know, it's, you know, something that, you know, now like you would have conversations with once family or friends people who you know normally wouldn't maybe get a bit bored about what, like, I don't know but like suddenly, you know, it became it highlighted like the structural inequities that are brought to bear. So, I think, whereas it is true that I think there was some disappointment about the ministerial decision that was reached at the WTO on June 17. Still in terms of like the impact in the political impact, I think, you know, as still the WTO is still trying to solve this issue about access to COVID countermeasures including therapeutics and diagnostics. I think that it's really, in terms of public consciousness, it's, even though this has been a horrible period and for humanity and for health systems for economies and society. At least it's, you know, I guess one silver lining is that, you know, can help activists sort of galvanize our work in terms of trying to fight for equity and reform the incentives for R&D. Thanks a lot, Piro. We do have a lot of homework to do. And I'm sure organizations like AEI and yourself actually are very helpful and useful in breaking down this very complex structures that sometimes are not so easy to understand. And on this note, we'll be ending this interview. Thank you so much. Thank you.