WTO reaches accords on fisheries, vaccines

GENEVA — Members of the World Trade Organization early Friday struck deals and commitments aimed at protecting stocks of ocean fish, broadening production of COVID-19 vaccines in the developing world, improving food security and reforming a 27-year-old trade body that has been on its heels in recent years.

WTO Director-general Nzogi Okonjoiweala concluded the WTO’S first ministerial conference in 4 ½ years by trumpeting a new sense of cooperation at a time when the world faces crises like Russia’s war in Ukraine and a once-in-a-century pandemic.

“The package agreements you have reached will make a difference to the lives of people around the world,” said Okonjoiweala, landing what she called an “unprecedented package of deliverables” after 15 months in the job.

The agreements could breathe new life into a trade body that faced repeated criticism from the administration of former U.S. President Donald Trump, which accused the WTO of a lack of fairness to the United States, and was caught in a growing U.S. rivalry with China. In recent years, Washington has incapacitated the WTO’S version of an appeals court that rules on international trade disputes.

Among Friday’s main achievements was an accord to prohibit both support for illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing and for fishing in overtaxed stocks in the world’s oceans.

More controversial was an agreement on a watered-down plan to waive intellectual property protections for COVID19 vaccines, which ran afoul of advocacy groups that say it did not go far enough — and could do more harm.

Okonjo-iweala said the waiver of intellectual property protections “will contribute to ongoing efforts to concentrate and diversify vaccine manufacturing capacity so that a crisis in one region does not leave others cut off.”

U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai hailed a “concrete and meaningful outcome to get more safe and effective vaccines to those who need it most.”