The World Trade Organization announces a raft of agreements after five days of negotiations.
Agreements including waiving patents for Covid vaccines and aiming to reduce overfishing have been passed by the World Trade Organization .
The WTO is an international agency with 164 member countries and its main functions are to provide a forum for negotiations to reduce barriers to international commerce, and to administer a system of rules governing trade. "This is a turning point in addressing one of the key drivers of global over-fishing." said Isabel Jarrett, manager of The Pew Charitable Trusts' campaign to reduce harmful fisheries subsidies.
But campaigners have said the agreement barely expands on an existing exemption in WTO rules and is too narrow because it does not cover therapeutics and diagnostics.