On Tuesday, 5 March 2013, Brazil delivered the following statement at the WTO TRIPS Council in favor of the LDC Group’s request for an extension to the transition period. The draft decision, if adopted as outlined in proposal (IP/C/W/583), would permit an LDC member not to apply the provisions of the TRIPS Agreement, other than Articles 3, 4 and 5, until they ceased to be an LDC.
Here is Brazilian intervention in full.
Brazil is supportive of the request of the LDCs for three different reasons :Firstly, special and differential treatment provisions to be found in the various agreements that form the acquis of the WTO, including the TRIPS agreement, are an important systemic component. The role performed by this systemic component is to ensure that the international trading system be an effective instrument of social and economic development for all Member States;
The second reason is that Brazil has invariably supported the principle that the international intellectual property system should have policy space for countries to adjust and calibrate their national legislation in accordance with their respective stages of social and economic development ;
Thirdly, the incorporation of developing countries, in particular the least developed ones, into the so-called knowledge economy has proved to be a daunting challenge, the complexity of which could barely be assessed almost twenty years ago, when the Uruguay Round was completed ;
In concluding, Mr. Chairman, my delegation is ready to support the proposal of the LDCs either as originally drafted in document IP/C/W/583 or any other formulation that could meet, hopefully, consensus in this Council