DOHA, Nov 8: World trade ministers, haunted by fears of terrorism and recession, got a stark warning here on Thursday from the head of the WTO that their efforts to expand global trade could founder in a row over drug patents.

The ministers, representing the 142-member World Trade Organization, were also coming under pressure from environment and labour groups as they prepared to open a key meeting here on Friday.

The five-day conference aims to hammer out an agenda for a new round of multilateral negotiations to lower global trade barriers.

The stakes in Doha are seen as higher than they were two years ago in Seattle, where a similar WTO meeting collapsed in failure, as some of the world’s most powerful economies are now headed for recession following the September 11 suicide attacks in the United States.

Developing countries are seeking a new interpretation of an agreement — known as Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) — to make it much easier to produce or import generic medicines.

The issue of TRIPS and public health this could well be the deal-breaker at this conference, Moore told a news conference.

It is an important issue and it is, I think, turning into one of the most difficult subjects we have in front of us.

The TRIPS agreement protects patents held by pharmaceutical giants. Developing countries maintain the arrangement hampers their ability to provide cheap, generic drugs to their people in times of acute medical crisis and seek the right to apply a more flexible reading of the text.

But the United States and other Western nations argue that the current accord is already sufficiently flexible and warn that any weakening of the agreement will discourage drug companies from investing in critical research.

Negotiators are in addition divided over a raft of other complex questions, ranging from steep agricultural export subsidies in the European Union and complaints from poor countries they have yet to taste the fruits of previous trade opening rounds.

Ministers are also likely to face demands from non governmental organizations here who fault the WTO for crippling — in the name of free trade — the rights of member countries to protect the environment and the rights of their workers.

Earlier Thursday the Rainbow Warrier, flagship of the environmental movement Greenpeace, sailed into Doha harbor to urge trade ministers to pressure the United States into honoring the UN’s Kyoto accord on climate change.

The WTO in its own charter claims to promote the use of the world’s resources for sustainable development, said Greenpeace International Director Gerd Leipold, who is aboard the Rainbow Warrior.

That claim is a nonsense if they do not actively promote efforts to combat climate change through the Kyoto Protocol.

The Protocol, signed in 1997 but not yet ratified by a sufficient number of countries, would curb emissions by developed economies of climate-changing greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide.

The administration of former US president Bill Clinton backed the deal but his successor, George W. Bush, rejected the accord shortly after coming to office in January.

Bush, who has close links to the US oil industry, justified the decision by arguing that Kyoto was ineffectual and flawed, notably because it did not require immediate effort from developing countries.

Also Thursday the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) asserted that protection of workers’ rights must be high on the Doha agenda.

Bill Jordan, ICFTU general secretary, described references to labour standards in draft texts serving as a basis for conference discussions as a step backwards.

The present text on core labour standards is a step backwards. It’s a slap in the face for all working people across the world, Jordan told a public gathering.

It seems to me to be a blind determination to ignore the visible backlash that has taken place against globalization amongst ordinary people.—AFP