India News | RSS-affiliate Swadeshi Jagran Manch Urges EU to Support TRIPS Waiver Proposal

New Delhi, May 20 (PTI) Swadeshi Jagran Manch, an RSS-affiliate, Thursday urged the European Union to extend its "unconditional support" to a proposal to waive off certain provisions of the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) to boost the production of COVID-19 medical products.

In a letter to EU Ambassador to India Ugo Astuto, Swadeshi Jagran Manch requested him to support the text-based negotiations of the TRIPS waiver proposal.

"The Swadeshi Jagran Manch is writing to draw your attention to the EU's reluctance to support a text-based negotiation of the TRIPS waiver proposal to suspend certain intellectual property for the COVID19 medical products," the SJM said in its letter.

The agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) came into effect in January 1995. It is a multilateral agreement on intellectual property (IP) rights such as copyright, industrial designs, patents and protection of undisclosed information or trade secrets.

In its letter, the SJM has noted that after the announcement of the US Trade Representative (USTR) Katherine Tai on May 5 to support the negotiation on the waiver proposal, many countries came forward in support.

"However, the announcement of the EU is not clear in its support to the text-based negotiations. Further, the EU attempted to limit it to the scope of the TRIPS Waiver to only the vaccine patents," it said.

"The EU proposed COVID-19 Vaccine Patent Pool is a diversionary tactic rather than addressing the real issue," the SJM added.

Last year on October 2, India and South Africa had submitted a proposal suggesting a waiver for all World Trade Organization (WTO) members on the implementation of certain provisions of the TRIPS Agreement for the prevention, containment or treatment of COVID-19.

Several countries, non-profit organisations, advocacy groups and rights bodies have supported the proposal.

The RSS-affiliate noted that the international human rights obligation also includes an obligation to desist from taking measures that result in the infringement of human rights in other countries.

Attempts to block the text-based negotiations go against the concept of solidarity and even violates the right to health guaranteed under Article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), it said.

"We request you to unconditionally support the TRIPS waiver proposal and constructively engage in the text-based negotiation to conclude the negotiation at the earliest without compromising the purposes and objectives behind the proposal," it said.

The SJM said that the best option to tackle the Covid-19 is to scale up the production of various COVID-19 medical products by removing the legal barrier against the freedom of operation.

"The approach of charity i.e. donating vaccines and other medical products is not a sustainable strategy. Further such an approach has also failed so far to effectively address the problem. This kind of approach is likely to lead to a continuation of monopoly by a few companies over Covid19 medical products. It will only accentuate the miseries of the people," it added.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)