The European Commission Paper Sample Clauses

The European Commission Paper. The EC on the other hand presented a much more positive paper with two possible solutions one being an interpretation of article 30 which allows exceptions to the patent rights. The interpretation suggested was so that generic manufacturing countries can be allowed to ‘export health products’ as an exception to the general rule. The second approach was that article 31 of the TRIPS Agreement should be amended to curve out paragraph (f). By this solution, it will be legal for any generic manufacturing country to issue a compulsory licence to manufacture and export to other countries as well. The EC is also ready to discuss production for export even to countries that do not provide pharmaceutical patents. One small problem with the EC paper is that it sought to limit these solutions to countries ‘facing serious health problems and exceptional circumstances’. 149 The question again arises as to who is competent to decide which countries are facing serious health problems. Almost all developing countries but especially those in Africa have crippling health problems such that if solutions to global health problems were limited to only a handful of them, the interests of making healthcare a reality will not be served. It is therefore important that since the instruments we are dealing with are global in nature, solutions should also be global in nature. 147 Ibid 148 MSF Reports, Drug Patents under the Spotlight, see xxxx://xxx.xxx.xxx 149 Ibid Be that as it may, this problem actually stems from the Doha Declaration itself. Paragraph 6 of the Doha Declaration states in part that “We recognise that WTO members with insufficient or no manufacturing capacities in the pharmaceutical sector could face difficulties in making effective use of compulsory licensing under the TRIPS Agreement”. An analysis of this paragraph by Oxfam International has revealed that it has an inherent gap in that it seeks solutions only for countries with pharmaceutical patents that issue compulsory licences. This therefore means that if the EC proposal was accepted and the solutions were restricted to these countries only, then least developed countries that opt to avail themselves of the extended period granted by the declaration (up to 2016) for TRIPS compliance will not benefit from such solutions. Xxxx Xxxxx of Oxfam strongly argues that “it would be absurd, damaging and quite contrary to the intentions of the ministers at Doha if the US and others insisted on excluding these categories ...