GENEVA, Dec 6 (AFP) - The World Trade Organization Tuesday confirmed a 2003 agreement to make generic medicines more widely available to poor countries.
The step was seen as a gesture to the developing world ahead of a key WTO ministerial meeting in Hong Kong next week.
Members of the 148-member organization confirmed their support for the provisional 2003 accord that allowed poor countries to import generic drugs to treat infectious diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis and AIDS, the WTO said.
The 2003 agreement gave poor nations affected by the diseases a temporary exemption from international laws protecting intellectual property rights and enabled them to buy generic drugs from pharmaceutical companies in countries such as Brazil and India.
The general council of the WTO, convening on Tuesday, agreed to make the measure permanent following concerns expressed by developing countries, notably African states, that the mechanism might be revoked.
They had urged the WTO to declare the agreement a definitive amendment to international commercial law prior to the WTO ministerial meeting December 13-18 in Hong Kong. The conference aims to galvanize momentum in the Doha Round of trade liberalization talks, which have foundered of late in the face of disagreements between developed and developing countries.
The measure approved Tuesday is to enter into force by December 1, 2007 at the latest following a final ratification by two-thirds of the WTO membership, the WTO said in its statement.
The accord, reached after years of wrangling, sought to balance protection of the intellectual property rights of drug companies with the desire of developing countries to buy cheaper, generic drugs.
Western countries insisted that their drug companies be protected from the re-export of generic medicines.
Under wording in the original agreement, which was repeated on Tuesday, all parties agreed to act "in good faith" and to make use of the mechanism for public health rather than commerical purposes.
Generic drugs are identical copies of branded drugs but are sold at a lower price. Branded drugs benefit from copyright protection for a specified length of time.
In Washington US Trade Representative Rob Portman hailed the WTO action Tuesday.
"This is a landmark achievement that we hope will help developing countries devastated by HIV/AIDS and other public health crises.
"The Africa Group and other developing countries made clear that the amendment was something they saw as essential to accomplish before Hong Kong and we were pleased to work with them to make it happen."
The French minister for external trade, Christine Lagarde, called the WTO confirmation "an excellent signal" ahead of Hong Kong, a point also made by EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson.
But the accord was faulted by several humanitarian organizations as too cumbersome to be effective.
The medical aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) said the agreement had been rendered "complicated and ineffective" by conditions attached to its use.
Another group working to eradicate AIDS, Act UP-Paris, also described the procedures approved by the WTO Tuesday as weighed down by administrative constraints.
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