Does India care about TRIPS waiver anymore?

As WTO talks begin on a compromise deal worked out with India's participation, New Delhi remains enigmatically silent

- LATHA JISHNU

PATENTLY ABSURD

THERE ARE unusual goings-on at the World Trade Centre, where a much-contested proposal to lift intellectual property (IP) restrictions on the manufacture of vital covid-19 therapies and vaccines has entered what appears to be the endgame. That proposal, made by India and South Africa (SA) in October 2020, sought a temporary waiver of the World Trade Organization (WTO)’s obstructive agreement on IP rights known as trips (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) so that affordable vaccines and therapies could be made available to the global south, which has faced an acute shortage of medical items to fight the pandemic. The negotiations went nowhere because of the opposition of developed countries to any IP waivers on the lucrative vaccines and therapies produced by their drug companies.

Early this year, an informal process was initiated by WTO Director-General Ngozi OkonjoIweala with the European Union— the main objectors to the waiver— along with the US, India and South Africa to break the long impasse. The Quad negotiations, as they became known, were conducted in secrecy and many rich countries had objected to it. In March, a leaked text of the Quad’s compromise agreement made the rounds globally and lead to an outcry, because the waiver was not only limited to vaccines but also came with a string of stricter new conditions than those embedded in trips (see ‘‘Compromise’ on trips waiver is a sellout’, Down To Earth 1-15 April, 2022). India remained enigmatically silent on the leaked text, refusing to own it. Ditto for South Africa. The US continued to play its careful diplomatic games, focused on its vaccines-only offer.