Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Honourable members, I thank you for the invitation to appear before this committee on your deliberations on a matter of fundamental importance to the international community, that of ensuring access to vital medicines by those in most pressing need of them.
I have to say that it's unusual for someone in the WTO Secretariat to contribute to a national legislative and policy-making process in this immediate way, but I understand that some technical input from the WTO Secretariat may assist you in your deliberations, just as it was sought by the Senate Standing Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce concerning the analogous Bill S-232, which led to an appearance before that committee in November last year.
I made an extended statement on that occasion, which is now on the record. So as not to outstay my welcome today, I would like to refer to that statement and ask, if possible, that the committee take note of the detailed clarifications and explanations concerning my status that we recorded on that occasion. However, I should reiterate that I do not appear before you as an independent expert with latitude to offer personal opinions nor as an advocate of any policy position or approach to legal interpretation. Equally, I'm not here to represent the World Trade Organization, as such. Rather, I work within the secretariat of the WTO, and I can offer input to your committee only at a technical level.
My position is something like that of the staffers, in fact, who organize and support your committee hearings, rather than that of an independent voice. I currently serve as director of the Intellectual Property Division of the WTO, where I work with a small but talented and dedicated group of colleagues responsible for the administration of the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, the TRIPS agreement. We service the TRIPS Council, a body within the WTO that comprises all of our members, that is to say, the 153 members of the WTO.
The TRIPS Council is in fact meeting right now and is just about to undertake its annual review of the paragraph 6 system you are considering in your deliberations. We also manage notifications and formal procedures under the TRIPS agreement, and we provide technical assistance and training, especially for developing countries. Again, this is an important part of our work in relation to the paragraph 6 system and public health. We do this in cooperation with our international partners, including the World Health Organization.
There are certain roles that we cannot offer you as a secretariat. Unfortunately, these may coincide with the very kinds of inputs that could be most useful to your committee. In particular, I can't offer any views on the interpretation of our legal texts—the TRIPS agreement and the amendment—and still less on the compatibility with TRIPS of any existing or proposed Canadian legislation. This position, I know, may appear to be evasive or unhelpful. I emphasize that it's emphatically not. Rather, it stems from sound policy reasons and a consensus among our members as to our appropriate role as a secretariat.
We are, however, responsible for supporting our members with respect to the appropriate way forward on the implementation of TRIPS and the paragraph 6 mechanism, and we have a responsibility to provide as much technical assistance as we can. However, our members collectively don't consider it helpful if a technical secretariat seeks to pass judgment on domestic legislative proposals or to make assessments as to whether the legislative choices comply with the TRIPS obligations in a legal sense. That's really a matter for our members to take up amongst themselves, and that's something I can elaborate on if it's useful to the committee.
There is a process of analysis and review of national legislation. Intellectual property legislation, including Canada's access to medicines regime, is normally notified to the TRIPS Council, to this formal body. The council then reviews the legislation. There is a peer review process whereby other members, other nations, raise questions about the legislation and seek clarification on it. But even the TRIPS Council itself is not empowered to then make a determination as to whether the legislation is compliant with TRIPS, even though our members have indeed, as a matter of policy, generally expressed a firm policy resolve to ensure that the legislation complies with TRIPS.
There are other processes, such as the trade policy review, that also look at aspects of the national trade regime. Indeed, Canada's most recent trade policy review in 2007 looked at the access to medicines regime, among many other aspects of Canada's laws and regulations.
However, none of these processes lead to any formal assessment of compliance with international obligations. If there are concerns about non-compliance, it's really up to another WTO member. If they happen to be sufficiently concerned to take up the matter formally, it's up to that member to follow one of several courses of action. One of these is to lodge a formal complaint, which can lead to formal disputes and proceedings. This can ultimately lead to an independent panel that will consider whether the law is consistent or not with obligations.
But the secretary itself certainly doesn't initiate any such compliant process. It really would be at odds with our essential role, and we don't offer any assistance on compliance on request or even by our initiative.