I would like to associate myself with all that was said today by the delegations of Zimbabwe, Brazil, Venezuela, India, South Africa and Tanzania.
For the delegation of Bolivia, which presented and endorsed the document "TRIPS and Public Health" together with 17 other delegations and the African Group, it is highly important that the Council for TRIPS should be addressing the issue of the relationship between intellectual property and access to medicines as an agenda item.
The WTO's decision to incorporate this subject into its discussions was a step in the right direction in tackling a problem with worldwide connotations that has led civil society to question the validity of the TRIPS Agreement, and in particular patent protection of pharmaceutical products. While this meeting is providing public opinion with an optimistic message, the WTO must take concrete measures to ensure that the millions of citizens in the developing countries suffering from poverty related diseases have effective access to pharmaceutical products.
Before initiating a discussion on the relationship between intellectual property and access to medicines, we should establish clearly that medicines are not just ordinary goods, and should receive special treatment.
Similarly, these discussions should be conducted in the framework of the Marrakesh Declaration in which Ministers affirmed that the establishment of the WTO must be for the benefit and welfare of their peoples. It should be recalled in this connection that access to medicines is a public health priority which prevails over purely commercial considerations in that it is one of the human rights, i.e. the right to health.
In principle, there should not be any conflict between the TRIPS Agreement and public health in view of the different provisions contained therein, in particular Articles 6 (exhaustion of rights), 7 (objectives), 8 (principles), 27 (patentable subject-matter), 30 (exceptions to rights conferred), 31 (compulsory licensing), 34 (reversal of the burden of proof), 40 (anti-competitive practices), 66 (transfer of technology to the least-developed country members) and 67 (technical cooperation). However, in practice, some developing countries have encountered difficulties with the holders of patents for medicines, because profit has prevailed over public health considerations.
The delegation of Bolivia is not questioning the fact that the patent system has served to promote research, develop new medicines and provide profits to inventors and creators. However, the objectives and principles of the Agreement must prevail and the Agreement must be applied in such a way as to protect and promote public health.
In this context, we consider that there are provisions in the TRIPS Agreement that enable the developing countries to face their domestic public health problems, such as the objectives and principles of the Agreement, compulsory licensing, parallel imports, as well as other initiatives such as the use of generic medicines, differential pricing a concept introduced by the WHO , dissemination of information on the prices of medicines, and so on.
We conclude by repeating that the fourth WTO Ministerial Conference in Doha must clearly establish that there is no conflict between the TRIPS Agreement and public health and, if necessary, that the existing provisions must be interpreted or a mandate provided to develop other provisions to clarify or amend the existing ones.
