TRIPS

The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) is an international legal agreement between all the member nations of the World Trade Organization (WTO).
The Agreement, which came into effect on 1 January 1995, is a comprehensive multilateral agreement on intellectual property.
The TRIPS Agreement is often described as one of the three “pillars” of the WTO, the other two being trade in goods and trade in services.
To facilitate the implementation of the TRIPS Agreement, the Council for TRIPS concluded with WIPO an agreement on cooperation between WIPO and the WTO, which came into force on 1 January 1996.

The topmost decision-making body of the WTO is the Ministerial Conference, which usually meets every two years.
It brings together all members of the WTO, all of which are countries or customs unions.
The Ministerial Conference can take decisions on all matters under any of the multilateral trade agreements.

India and South Africa have jointly moved a proposal at the WTO’s TRIPS council for a waiver to help more countries get access to medicines and vaccines during the pandemic.
Fifty-seven WTO members have backed the proposal, but the EU, U.S., Japan and Canada have opposed the idea, stressing the importance of intellectual property for innovation.

India’s ambassador to the WTO Brajendra Navnit recently said that failing to approve the COVID-19 waiver for equitable access to medicines under the TRIPS Agreement could dent global economic output by trillions of dollars at the cost of protecting vaccine makers’ business worth just $30-40 billion.
India’s WTO representative also pitched for greater market access for agriculture, arguing that developing countries have reduced their tariffs but still face barriers to trade from countries that continue to give high subsidies to large farmers.
Mr. Navnit also criticised the failure of the WTO to hold a ministerial council in the last four years, though it is supposed to be held every two years.

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