Minutes - TRIPS Council - View details of the intervention/statement

Ambassador Mero (United Republic of Tanzania)
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD)
13 The United Nations Secretary-General's High-Level Panel Report on Access to Medicines
695. UNCTAD recently recommended to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to consider endorsement of the Report of the HLP. As a member of the Expert Advisory Group to the HLP, UNCTAD was involved in the expert discussions that fed into the HLP Report. UNCTAD also provided comments on the first draft of the Report. 696. The Report makes recommendations in three separate but interrelated areas: first, IP laws and access to health technologies; second, new incentives for research and development of health technologies; and third, government accountability and transparency. Within the context of its mandate, UNCTAD's technical expertise resides mainly within the first of these areas. The bulk of UNCTAD's contributions during the technical discussions with the Expert Advisory Group to the HLP related to IP laws and access issues. 697. On IP laws and access to health technologies, the HLP recommends the full use of flexibilities inherent in the WTO TRIPS Agreement as reiterated in the WTO Doha Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health. UNCTAD's advisory and capacity-building work over the past ten years shows that this flexibility, such as the recourse to strict patenting requirements, setting out exceptions to patent rights and the availability of compulsory licences play an important role in promoting generic competition and thus affordable prices. 698. According to our research, many of those countries that now enjoy a fully developed pharmaceutical sector in the past relied on many of those flexibilities that the HLP Report recommends in order to strike a balance between investors' rights and the realization of certain development objectives. 699. The HLP recommendations underlined the UN's commitment to the realization of Sustainable Development Goal 3 which in its target expressly refers to the goal of providing "access to affordable essential medicines and vaccines in accordance with the Doha Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health which affirms the right of developing countries to use, to the full, the provisions in the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects on Intellectual Property Rights regarding flexibilities to protect public health and in particular provide access to medicines for all". 700. On new incentives for research and development of health technologies, the HLP Report recommends increased investment by governments in health technology innovations to meet needs such as neglected tropical diseases and antimicrobial resistance. 701. The Report refers to various ongoing initiatives in this regard and underlines the need to develop new and innovative sources of financing public policies in line with the Addis Ababa Action Agenda. 702. The Report is not limited to public funding, but underlines the untapped opportunities for increasing private sector funding. The recommendations provide important support to efforts that seek to identify innovative opportunities for both public and private sector funding for health and R&D. UNCTAD is willing to contribute its vast experience in investment policy-making and technology issues in this regard. 703. Finally, on governance accountability and transparency, the HLP Report calls for increased collaboration among UN agencies to improve coherence in technical cooperation activities related to public health, as well as to monitor the implementation of the HLP's recommendations. UNCTAD, in the delivery of its technical cooperation activities on investment and IPRs as it relates to trade and development, already corporates to a large extent with other agencies, such as UNAIDS, UNDP, WIPO, WHO and WTO. UNCTAD welcomes the HLP Report recommendation to increase interagency coordination.
The Council took note of the statements made and agreed to take the matter up as an ad hoc agenda item at its next meeting.
70. The Chairman said that Brazil, China, India and South Africa had requested that this item be added to the agenda. They had submitted a communication that briefly introduced the item, circulated in document IP/C/W/619.

71. The representatives of India, Brazil, South Africa, China, Ecuador, Egypt, Indonesia, Bangladesh, the Russian Federation, the United States, Canada, the European Union, Chile, Australia, Switzerland, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the Plurinational State of Bolivia and Norway took the floor.

72. The representatives of the Holy See, WHO, UNCTAD, and UNAIDS took the floor.

73. The representative of the Secretariat took the floor.

74. The Council took note of the statements made and agreed to take the matter up as an ad hoc agenda item at its next meeting.

IP/C/M/83, IP/C/M/83/Add.1