China says it won’t use new TRIPS proposal as WTO moves to text-based talks

The majority of World Trade Organization members this week supported the recently released compromise proposal to waive some intellectual property protections for COVID-19 vaccines as the basis for text-based negotiations in Geneva, a process likely to be at least somewhat smoothed by China’s pledge on Tuesday not to take advantage of the text’s flexibilities. The proposal, presented last week to the members by Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala following high-level negotiations with the U.S., the European Union, India and South Africa, has...