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: compulsory licensing to be exported to countries that face public health problems, but have no domestic production capacity. Article 30 is on exceptions to patent rights and in my view, is another classic example of bad drafting.
Here is Article 30. “Members may provide limited exceptions to the exclusive rights conferred by a patent, provided that such exceptions do not unreasonably conflict with a normal exploitation of the patent and do not unreasonably prejudice the legitimate interests of the patent owner, taking account of the legitimate interests of third parties.” This Article has a lot of nice sounding words, but what on earth does it mean? The Trips agreement has several articles on rights conferred by a patent. It also has several articles on exceptions to rights. Those articles are specific. But by virtue of being non-specific, Article 30 contributes nothing to general comprehension. The WTO’s dispute resolution mechanism has already had to interpret what Article 30 means. And thanks to para 6 and Doha, the Trips Council will now have to interpret what Article 30 means and possibly suggest amendments and explanatory notes. Wouldn’t it have been better had Article 30 been precisely drafted in the first place?
Lack of ambiguity and precision reduce disputes. However, ambiguity and vagueness are sometimes deliberate and not inadvertent. For example, most citizens believe lawyers prefer vagueness. Otherwise, there would be less for them to do. I wonder if this logic is equally true of WTO negotiators....
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