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Channel: World Trade Organization | The Guardian

If Olaf Scholz is serious about progress, he must back a patent waiver for Covid vaccines | Joseph Stiglitz

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Germany is already out of step with the rest of the EU on this and needs to send a strong signal to Joe Biden

Announcing a “new era” for Germany last month, the country’s new chancellor, Olaf Scholz, made his bold intentions clear. “We are united by our belief in progress and that politics can achieve something good,” he said, launching his SPD-Green-FDP coalition’s programme, under the slogan “dare more progress”.

This self-described “progress coalition” promises a series of socially liberal domestic policies – but it could make its greatest impact of all if it dares to join the global movement to make Covid-19 vaccines available to all as global public goods. The statement “no one is safe until everyone is safe” must be more than a nice-sounding slogan: Germany has the opportunity and the obligation to help it become a reality.

Joseph E Stiglitz is a Nobel laureate in economics and a professor at Columbia University

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End trade barriers to help tackle climate crisis, says WTO chief

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Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala calls for changes to ensure developing nations are resilient to affects of extreme weather

Removing trade barriers around the world would help to tackle the climate crisis, enable a “just transition” away from fossil fuels and make developing countries more resilient to the impacts of global heating, the head of the World Trade Organization has said.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who took over as director general of the global watchdog last March, said: “Trade is part of the solution, not part of the problem … We need a global effort to climate-proof the supply chains and infrastructure of the most vulnerable economies or risk undoing hard-won economic progress and development.”

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Labour claims UK ministers risking emergence of new Covid variants

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Government accused of thwarting poorer countries’ bid to manufacture their own vaccines

Labour has claimed ministers are risking the emergence of other Covid variants like Omicron by thwarting a bid by poorer countries to manufacture their own vaccines.

The British government has “actively blocked countries in Africa and across the developing world from making their own vaccines” by opposing a waiver on intellectual property rights for Covid vaccines, the party says.

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Harry and Meghan add voices to fierce critique of west’s Covid vaccine policies

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Pair join Gordon Brown and 127 others in attack on ‘self-defeating nationalism, pharmaceutical monopolies and inequality’

Prince Harry and Meghan, the actor Charlize Theron and the former British prime minister Gordon Brown are among 130 signatories to a letter lambasting wealthy countries’ approach to the Covid-19 pandemic, labelling it “immoral, entirely self-defeating and also an ethical, economic and epidemiological failure”.

In a strongly worded open letter published on Friday, the signatories warned “the pandemic is not over”, and said the failure to vaccinate the world was down to “self-defeating nationalism, pharmaceutical monopolies and inequality”.

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G7 nations strip Russia of ‘most favoured nation’ status

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Group of wealthy nations plan to revoke benefits and impose heavy tariffs to further isolate Moscow over Ukraine war

Western governments have announced plans to impose punitive tariffs on Russian trade to further isolate Moscow from the global economy after the invasion of Ukraine.

In a development aimed at ratcheting up the pressure on Vladimir Putin, the G7 group of wealthy nations said it would strip Russia of “most favoured nation” (MFN) status under World Trade Organization (WTO) rules.

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War in Ukraine could lead to food riots in poor countries, warns WTO boss

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Exclusive: Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala says impact of conflict on food prices and hunger could be substantial

Rocketing global food prices as a result of the war in Ukraine could trigger riots from those going hungry in poor countries, the head of the World Trade Organization has said.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala warned food-producing countries against hoarding supplies and said it was vital to avoid a repeat of the Covid pandemic, when rich countries were able to secure for themselves the bulk of vaccines.

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World Bank planning to give support worth $1.5bn to Ukraine

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Funds will help to pay hospital workers and pensions, and continue social programmes for the vulnerable

The World Bank is planning financial support to Ukraine worth $1.5bn (£1.2bn) to help keep critical services running as the country fights a fresh assault by Russia in Vladimir Putin’s ongoing war.

The bank said the funds would be used to support the continuation of key government services, including wages for hospital workers, pensions for elderly people, and social programmes for vulnerable people.

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Poorer countries need urgent food help to stop disorder, say global bodies

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WTO and World Bank among those saying richer countries must step in to alleviate effects of rising prices and shortages

Rich countries need to provide emergency food supplies to prevent rising prices and shortages triggering social unrest in poorer parts of the world, the heads of four major international bodies have said.

Calling for urgent and coordinated action, the World Bank, the UN World Food Programme, the World Trade Organization and the International Monetary Fund warned that the food crisis was pushing millions of people into poverty.

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Hopes rise for Covid vaccine patent waiver after key countries agree on proposal

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The proposal, if passed by the full council, could allow other countries to make vaccines without paying pharmaceutical companies

The World Trade Organization’s (WTO) most powerful members said on Tuesday that they had agreed on a proposed waiver on intellectual property rights for Covid-19 vaccines in the hopes of speeding up rollouts worldwide.

The proposal from the so-called Quad (the European Union, India, South Africa and the United States) will still have to go to the full council, but China has indicated it is prepared to vote in favour. If passed, it could allow developing world countries to manufacture Covid vaccines without paying Pfizer, Moderna and other pharmaceutical companies licenses.

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Affordable Covid drugs kept out of reach by sluggish WTO

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Analysis: EU and US pharma giants’ intellectual property rights stop poorer countries accessing vital medication – despite WTO claims of progress

There is still a long way to go before South Africa and other developing countries can manufacture Covid vaccines and treatments quickly and without paying the huge charges demanded by the big US and European drug companies.

Last week, the World Trade Organization (WTO) announced that the 180-member trade forum had taken a step towards a patent waiver that would allow developing countries to make the drugs they need – including vaccines, tests, and treatments – for as long as five years, without payments to pharma giants such as Pfizer.

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Geoengineering must be regulated if used to cut emissions, says former WTO head

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Pascal Lamy to lead commission exploring how methods to tackle global heating could be governed

Countries must urgently agree a way of controlling and regulating attempts to geoengineer the climate, and consider whether to set a moratorium on such efforts, as the danger of global heating exceeding the 1.5C threshold increases, the former head of the World Trade Organisation has warned.

Pascal Lamy, a former director general of the WTO and a former EU trade commissioner, now president of the Paris Peace Forum, said governments were increasingly likely to explore the possibilities of geoengineering, as efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions have so far been inadequate.

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Davos 2022 meeting was a missed opportunity over globalisation | Joseph Stiglitz

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Business and political elite embraced new ethos at WEF without reflecting on past mistakes

The World Economic Forum’s first meeting in more than two years was markedly different from the many previous Davos conferences that I have attended since 1995. It was not just that the bright snow and clear skies of January were replaced by bare ski slopes and a gloomy May drizzle. Rather, it was that a forum traditionally committed to championing globalisation was primarily concerned with globalisation’s failures: broken supply chains, food and energy price inflation, and an intellectual property (IP) regime that left billions without Covid-19 vaccines just so that a few drug companies could earn billions in extra profits.

Among the proposed responses to these problems are to “reshore” or “friend-shore” production and to enact “industrial policies to increase country capacities to produce”. Gone are the days when everyone seemed to be working for a world without borders; suddenly, everyone recognises that at least some national borders are key to economic development and security.

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The WTO faces a make or break week over vaccines | Larry Elliott

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A ruling on whether or not to waive patent rules will this week show if the trade body is for the world or the west

A crisis at the World Trade Organization has been brewing for years and it now looks like coming to a head. There are many potential flash points as trade ministers assemble for talks in Geneva this week but in the end they boil down to a single issue: vaccines.

Put simply, the WTO’s members need to decide whether they are going to waive patent protection for Covid-19 treatments developed in the west so that poorer countries can manufacture their own lower-cost vaccines. What the meeting ought to do is come up with a meaningful agreement covering the waiving of patent rules not just for the current but any future pandemic. If it does so, the WTO will live to fight another day. All the other vexatious issues – and there are plenty of them – will be fudged or kicked down the road.

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The WTO, with its ‘market knows best’ ideology, has failed. It’s time to bury it | Nick Dearden

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The World Trade Organization has encouraged agricultural monopolies and cheap labour, and created vulnerable supply chains

When delegates arrive in Geneva today for the long delayed World Trade Organization (WTO) summit, they will find an institution in the middle of an existential crisis. For 18 long months, the WTO has been debating a moderate proposal from South Africa and India which would have allowed countries to temporarily override the property rights of pharmaceutical corporations so they could produce patented Covid-19 vaccines. Opposition by Britain, Switzerland and other European countries has kept it from progressing. Even a global pandemic, it seems, isn’t sufficient cause to prompt a temporary rethink of the WTO’s pro-business approach.

Just as bad, the WTO cannot agree a common approach to the food crisis fast spreading across the globe, or the invasion of one of its members by another, or, most serious of all, the climate catastrophe facing humanity. All it can do is fall back on the mantra of more free trade. Unable to break with a “market knows best” ideology which is actively exacerbating the world’s problems, the WTO is now a failed institution. It’s time to bury it.

Nick Dearden is director of Global Justice Now

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First WTO deal on fishing subsidies hailed as historic despite ‘big holes’

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Environment groups welcome long-awaited deal to curb harmful subsidies but say key measures to curb overfishing were dropped

After 20 years of failed negotiations, the World Trade Organization has secured a deal to curb harmful subsidies that contribute to overfishing. Conservationists and campaign groups welcomed last week’s agreement as historic, despite criticism of “big holes” in the agreement.

The deal was the first concluded in Geneva for all 164 member states of the WTO with “environmental sustainability” at its core, the organisation’s director general, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, said in her closing speech.

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Australian trade minister offers ‘compromise’ with China over anti-dumping tariffs

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Australia is proceeding with trade disputes in WTO but Don Farrell says other options may emerge in talks between two countries

Australia’s trade minister has extended an olive branch to China, suggesting a “compromise situation” or “alternative way” to settle trade disputes might emerge in talks between the two countries.

Don Farrell made the comments in an interview with Guardian Australia hailing “positive signs” in Australia’s relationship with China, including the foreign minister, Penny Wong, planning to meet her counterpart, and China’s consent to a trade dispute appeal process.

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Jeremy Hobbs obituary

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My colleague and friend Jeremy Hobbs, who has died aged 64 from cancer, was instrumental in the creation of Oxfam International – today a confederation of 21 member organisations – and served as its executive director from 2001 to 2013.

In 1995, as director of the Australian charity Community Aid Abroad, Jeremy negotiated with seven other organisations to create a single union under the Oxfam banner, with his charity becoming Oxfam Australia. He hosted the confederation’s first meeting in Melbourne.

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US Covid recovery in ‘jeopardy’ unless poorer countries helped, group warns

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Congressional group writes letter urging Biden to extend WTO agreement aimed at easing generic vaccine exports

US recovery from the Covid pandemic is in “jeopardy” unless the Biden administration supports making treatment and testing for the disease more readily available to low-income countries, a powerful congressional group has warned Joe Biden.

In a letter to Joe Biden led by congressman Earl Blumenauer, chairman of the subcommittee on trade, the group urged the president to extend a June World Trade Organisation (WTO) agreement aimed at easing exports of generic vaccines to treatments and therapeutics.

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Australia seeks direct resolution of trade dispute with China before WTO ruling

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As Penny Wong heads to Beijing for the first such visit in four years, trade minister says he is confident economic issues can be resolved

The international trade umpire is set to rule within months on Australia’s complaints against China’s trade sanctions, setting up a deadline for the diplomatic thaw to produce a breakthrough.

As Australia and China prepare to mark the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations on Wednesday, the trade minister, Don Farrell, said he was prepared to meet the Chinese commerce minister at any time and place to seek a resolution.

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Australia and China team up to protest WTO blockages caused by US vetoes on appeal body

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More than 100 countries stress ‘the urgency and importance’ of filling appeal judge positions as US continues years-long disruption started by Trump

Australia has teamed up with China and more than 100 countries to protest longstanding blockages at the World Trade Organization as the United States vetoes appeal judge appointments.

Australia and China remain at odds over specific trade disputes between them – such as Beijing’s tariffs on Australian wine and barley – but are united in concern about the years-long disruption to a key appeal body.

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