Associated Press - Friday, December 20, 2002
Naomi Koppel, Associated Press Writer

"The United States has announced it cannot join the consensus," said Brazilian negotiator Antonio de Aguiar Patriota. Patriota earlier told reporters that out of 144 WTO members, the draft text had the support of 143.

No comment was immediately available from U.S. participants in the talks.

This week was the deadline to conclude months of emotional wrangling, and Washington was the only government that openly refused to accept a draft WTO agreement to allow some developing countries to ignore patents and order cheap copies when importing drugs to treat diseases such as HIV/AIDS and malaria. The

United States objected to provisions in the trade agreement that would have allowed poor countries to circumvent patents for a number of diseases and conditions.

The meeting began as planned Friday morning, but Mexican chairman Eduardo Perez Motta suspended the session after five minutes, saying more time was needed for consultations with members.

The delegates reconvened at 5 p.m., but ended the session immediately and agreed to meet three hours later. They later decided to adjourn their meeting again until 11 p.m to allow U.S. Ambassador Linnet Deily to consult with Washington.

Although the United States generally supported the proposal, it wanted to limit the scope to epidemics of infectious diseases and not let developing countries use it to gain cheap access to drugs for conditions like asthma, diabetes or smoking-related illnesses.

"We remain committed to both the intention and the spirit and we will work with other delegations," Deily said earlier.

Japanese Ambassador Shotaro Oshima said he was unwilling to put all the blame on Washington.

"I don't know if the Americans were the only ones," Oshima said. "It takes two tango."

"All of us did our best to try to come to an agreement, but we just ran out of time," Oshima added.

In a compromise proposed earlier, the United States suggested adding a footnote to the final deal saying which diseases would be covered - not only HIV/AIDS and malaria but a total of 15 mostly tropical diseases that hit continents like Africa hard.

Developing countries, however, said they would be unhappy with any restrictions. With the WTO closed over Christmas and New Year and most delegates returning to their countries for the holiday, Friday was seen as the last possible chance to cement a deal.

The WTO had given itself until the end of the year to settle the issue. The failure of the meeting could seriously jeopardize talks in other areas of trade talks, which face a series of tight deadlines in the early part of 2003.

Developing countries are unlikely to agree on any other issues until the drug problem has been settled.

The ministerial WTO meeting in Qatar in November last year recognized the right of poor member countries to override patents on expensive Western drugs and make the products themselves when public health is at stake.

However, drugs made under such "compulsory licensing" were to be used only domestically and not exported. That meant that the huge majority of developing nations that have no drug industry were unable to benefit because they could neither make the drugs they needed nor import them.

Developing countries, led by South Africa and Brazil, reluctantly accepted the declaration rather than collapse the talks to launch the round. In return, the WTO was instructed to solve the problem by the end of this year.

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