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The Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB), which is tasked under WHO with drawing up an international instrument on pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response, will sit for the 9th and final time from March 18–29. In the 2 years since it first met, hundreds of hours and unknown costs have been spent, but the political impetus has died. The convention is now at a critical juncture: the final text for countries to ratify is due to be presented at the World Health Assembly in May. With only limited days of negotiation left and a long way to go to secure a meaningful agreement, it is now or never for a treaty that can make the world a safer place.

This month the World Trade Organization threw in the towel on COVID-19. Medicines like Paxlovid have been plentiful in the U.S. and Europe, but because of insufficient supplies and high prices, hardly anyone in Africa, Asia, and Latin America has had access. After more than three years of debate, the WTO declared on Feb. 13 that it was unable to reach agreement on waiving global patent rules for COVID-19 treatment to ease the way for expanded production.

South Africa and India have formally opposed the adopton of the Investment Facilitaton “for Development” Agreement for consideraton during the 13th Ministerial Conference (MC13) of the WTO, upholding legal procedures regarding plurilaterals of the global trade body.

The Marrakesh Agreement is unambiguous that a new plurilateral agreement can only be adopted in the WTO through “Annex 4” rules, as proponents of the IF agreement are proposing, exclusively by explicit consensus of all WTO Members.

There is no consensus at the MC13 that the IF can even be legally entered on the agenda. Previous decisions of WTO Ministers are clear that negotatons on investment can only be launched by consensus, once the Doha round is over, so the IF has no legal status in the WTO.

The Minister of Trade for South Korea, a co-sponsor of the agreement, acknowledged they would need consensus to incorporate the deal, and let slip that the “WTO Secretariat is trying to persuade opponents” to drop their oppositIon.

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Civil society organisations at the World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting in the United Arab Emirates this week have criticized restrictions on their participation, including alleging that some of their members had been briefly detained at the talks.

Our World Is Not For Sale (OWINFS), a network of civil society groups, said on Wednesday it had complained to WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala over several incidents of "detainment, confiscation of materials, and heavy-handed restrictions on lobbying by civil society" groups.

The WTO, in a statement, said the director-general had met with civil society representatives on Tuesday to discuss their concerns and had since spoken with the host chair of the talks to identify solutions.

This month the World Trade Organization threw in the towel on COVID-19. Medicines like Paxlovid have been plentiful in the U.S. and Europe, but because of insufficient supplies and high prices, hardly anyone in Africa, Asia, and Latin America has had access. After more than three years of debate, the WTO declared on Feb. 13 that it was unable to reach agreement on waiving global patent rules for COVID-19 treatment to ease the way for expanded production.

-- A deal to renew the World Trade Organization’s moratorium on electronic commerce duties likely will include language on an e-commerce work program requiring that members define the parameters of the temporary ban -- a move industry stakeholders fear could make future renewals even more difficult.

Negotiations on e-commerce will begin in earnest here at the 13th ministerial conference on Thursday -- the last scheduled day of a ministerial many expect will be extended one more day. New Zealand Trade Minister and MC13 Vice Minister Todd McClay told Inside U.S. Trade he believes the most likely outcome on e-commerce is that the moratorium is renewed in parallel with a work program that calls on members to clarify the moratorium’s definition by the next ministerial.

But many stakeholders here believe the moratorium’s renewal is only a 50-50 prospect, with some believing it might not be even that high.

Equity is listed as a "guiding principle and approach" in the current proposed negotiating text for a new pandemic instrument.

"Equity is at the centre of pandemic prevention, preparedness and response, both at the national level within States, among and within countries or regions, and at the international level between States…” as per Article 3 of the negotiating text that elaborates on the principle of equity.

Similarly, EB decision 150(3), which spells out the scope of the amendment of the International Health Regulations 2005 (IHR) also mandates to address the issue of equity. It states: “Such amendments should be limited in scope and address specific and identified issues, challenges – including equity, technological or other developments – or gaps that could not effectively be addressed otherwise but are critical to supporting effective implementation and compliance of the International Health Regulations (2005)”.

The WTO Secretariat and sponsors of the Reference Paper on Services Domestic Regulation will attempt to spin on the announcement that India and South Africa have withdrawn their objections to its adoption through schedules to the WTO General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) as an outcome of this MC13.

This is not an outcome of the ministerial. This issue was addressed in Geneva. It is still being addressed in the correct forum mandated to address this issue, the Working Party on Domestic Regulation.

There are several legal and procedural issues that remain outstanding and still need to be addressed, including how to ensure that procedural rules that relate to amending schedules of commitments do not get abused to circumvent the rules of amendment under the Marrkesh Agreement.

Civil Society call on the Members, as the next step, to discuss long-standing concerns with this reference paper in that proper forum.

Intellectual property protection for the Swiss pharmaceutical industry has been a key sticking point in negotiations on a free trade agreement with India. Now there seems to be a breakthrough in talks after 16 years. What’s changed?

 More than 120 countries on 25 February circulated the Joint Ministerial Declaration on Investment Facilitation for Development (IFD) at the World Trade Organization’s 13th ministerial conference (MC13) in Abu Dhabi, setting the stage for a tense battle over the entry of the IFD Agreement into the WTO on procedural and systemic grounds, said people familiar with the development.

India and South Africa have consistently blocked the entry of the IFD agreement as a plurilateral agreement on both procedural and systemic grounds.