Archive - Jun 2013 - Signon Statement

On 11th June 2013, the WTO TRIPS Council took a decision (IP/C/64) to extend for a further 8 years, the flexibility of least developed country (LDC) Members under Article 66.1 to not apply the provisions of the TRIPS Agreement except for Articles 3, 4 and 5 (which concern national treatment and most-favored nation treatment). This decision was a compromise deal as the EU and US exerted intense pressure on the LDCs to accept conditionalities that are not in favour of the people in the LDCs.

Global civil society organizations, representing hundreds of millions of members across the globe, urge WTO members to abandon the negotiations towards a binding agreement on Trade Facilitation in advance of the upcoming 9th Ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Bali. Further they call upon governments not to promote binding rules on Trade Facilitation either inside the WTO through the proposed Trade Facilitation (TF) agreement, nor through other avenues such as bilateral or regional Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) or Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs).