TRIPS amendment – Trade β Blog

Can EU law really dictate World Trade Organization rules?

This is a genuine question. I don’t know the answer. Hopefully some lawyers can help explain why the WTO and EU are trying to dodge the question of how to count the organisation’s members

By Peter Ungphakorn
POSTED DECEMBER 1, 2016 | UPDATED AUGUST 21, 2023

If you visit the WTO website today, bang in the middle of the homepage is a countdown image declaring that only 10 ratifications are needed before the Trade Facilitation Agreement enters into force.

tfa-countdown-wto-homepage-30nov16 — From wto.org homepage December 1, 2016

What you won’t see is another countdown that should be even more exciting. Much closer to entering into force is a long overdue amendment on pharmaceutical patents — only three more ratifications are needed.

The race for the first ever WTO amendment: some key facts

The first stage of the race has been won. In early 2017, two thirds of World Trade Organization members ratified two amendments. Now it’s up to the rest

By Peter Ungphakorn
POSTED JULY 31, 2016 | UPDATED AUGUST 8, 2023

The World Trade Organization agreements are over 20 years old. Economic and trade needs are changing fast. And yet the agreements have never been updated — until now. Two amendments have reached the target. To achieve that they needed 110 ratifications, two thirds of the WTO’s 164 members.

WTO amendment on access to medicines faces EU conundrum

Only three more ratifications are needed for the WTO’s first ever amendment to take effect. Or is it … FOUR?

Note: The “conundrum” was dodged on January 23, 2017 when five countries were officially announced to have ratified the amendment. The total leapt over the targeted 110 to 112. Now that the target has been reached, this blog post will no longer be updated. But the conundrum remains unresolved.

(More up-to-date information from 2023 is available here).

By Peter Ungphakorn
FIRST PUBLISHED BY IP-WATCH, APRIL 14, 2016
REVISED AND POSTED HERE JUNE 12, 2016 | UPDATED NOVEMBER 30, 2016

After waiting for over a decade, the World Trade Organization is finally close to achieving the first ever amendment to its rule-book, with only a handful of members still needing to formally accept new intellectual property provisions dealing with one aspect of access to medicines.