Amendment of IP rules in WTO

An amendment to the TRIPS Agreement entered into force on Monday, 23 January 2017 securing for poor countries a legal pathway to access affordable medicines under WTO rules. The amendment to the WTO Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement took place specifically to adapt the rules of the global trading system to the public health needs of people in poor countries. This action follows repeated calls from the multilateral system for acceptance of the amendment, most recently by the UN General Assembly High-Level Meeting on Ending AIDS in June 2016.

“This is an extremely important amendment. It gives legal certainty that generic medicines can be exported at reasonable prices to satisfy the needs of countries with no pharmaceutical production capacity, or those with limited capacity. By doing so, it helps the most vulnerable access the drugs that meet their needs, helping to deal with diseases such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis or malaria, as well as other epidemics,” said WTO Director-General Roberto Azevêdo.

Unanimously adopted by WTO members in 2005, the protocol amending the TRIPS Agreement makes permanent a mechanism to ease poorer WTO members' access to affordable generic medicines produced in other countries. The amendment empowers importing developing and least-developed countries facing public health problems and lacking the capacity to produce drugs generically to seek such medicines from third country producers under 'compulsory licensing' arrangements. Normally, most medicines produced under compulsory licences can only be provided to the domestic market in the country where they are produced. This amendment allows exporting countries to grant compulsory licences to generic suppliers exclusively for the purpose of manufacturing and exporting needed medicines to countries lacking production capacity.

The amendment provides a secure and sustained legal basis for both potential exporters and importers to adopt legislation and establish the means needed to allow countries with limited or no production capacity to import affordable generics from countries where pharmaceuticals are patented.

Compiled by law desk (source: wto.org).