Current Status
In 2005, WTO members reached agreement on an amendment to the TRIPS Agreement to make permanent the temporary waiver contained in the August 30 WTO Decision, which itself fulfilled the requirement of Paragraph 6 of the Doha Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health of November 14, 2001. This decision created a mechanism to allow WTO members to issue compulsory licences to export generic versions of patented medicines to countries with insufficient or no manufacturing capacity in the pharmaceutical sector.
The 2005 Ministerial Declaration stated:
"We reaffirm the importance we attach to the General Council Decision of 30 August 2003 on the Implementation of Paragraph 6 of the Doha Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health, and to an amendment to the TRIPS Agreement replacing its provisions. In this regard, we welcome the work that has taken place in the Council for TRIPS and the Decision of the General Council of 6 December 2005 on an Amendment of the TRIPS Agreement."
The amendment, the first ever to the TRIPS Agreement, was circulated to WTO members for formal adoption. A deadline of December 1, 2007 was set for members to accept the permanent amendment. For the amendment to be put into effect, at least two-thirds of members must formally adopt it.
On November 30, 2007, Peter Mandelson, the then European Union's Trade Commissioner, announced that the European Union formally accepted the World Trade Organization -approved protocol of December 2005, amending the TRIPS Agreement. However, in order for the decision to have legal effect, two-thirds of the WTO's 153 Members are required to ratify the agreement. The European Union's acceptance only brings the number to 41.
In 2008 a decision was made to extend the deadline for accepting the TRIPS agreement amendment. The deadline has been extended until 31 December 2009 or "such later date as may be decided by the Ministerial Conference."
Read more about this topic: Doha Declaration
Famous quotes containing the words current and/or status:
“For the purpose of knowledge, one must know how to use that inner current that draws us to a thing, and then the one that, after a time, draws us away from it.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“Anthropologists have found that around the world whatever is considered “men’s work” is almost universally given higher status than “women’s work.” If in one culture it is men who build houses and women who make baskets, then that culture will see house-building as more important. In another culture, perhaps right next door, the reverse may be true, and basket- weaving will have higher social status than house-building.”
—Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen. Excerpted from, Gender Grace: Love, Work, and Parenting in a Changing World (1990)