GENEVA, 30 August 2003 — The World Trade Organization resumed negotiations yesterday on a plan to allow access for poor countries to cheap, generic drugs, as the lives of millions hung in the balance. The proposed agreement, on what may be the 146-nation World Trade Organization’s most emotionally charged issue, snagged on a “problem of interpretation”, according to a source close to the talks.

WTO General Council Chairman Carlos Perez del Castillo was reported to have told delegates yesterday: “This is a serious humanitarian issue which cannot be done in a way which is not entirely clear. We have to get this right, not just for us but more importantly for the people who desperately need these medicines.”

It was not immediately known what caused the rejection of the plan by the WTO General Council in the early hours of yesterday. Some aid agencies and pharmaceutical groups said the rejected deal had been more show than substance.

“Certain developing countries do not have the same interpretation of this compromise as other countries,” added the source who asked not to be named. The failure was welcomed by the Indian pharmaceutical industry, which like the international relief agency Oxfam said the proposed deal would not really help millions who die each year of diseases such as AIDS, malaria or tuberculosis.

WTO envoys have been discussing the accord since Tuesday, in an attempt to hammer out an agreement ahead of a WTO ministerial conference in Cancun, Mexico, in less than two weeks’ time. At issue is the need of poor countries lacking a pharmaceutical industry to be able to import cheaper generic copies of patented medicines to fight life-threatening diseases such as AIDS and malaria.

The WTO agreed late Thursday on the compromise agreement but it failed to win approval by the WTO’s ruling General Council. “There is no deal. We need more time,” WTO spokesman Keith Rockwell told reporters before the talks resumed in an informal general council meeting later in the day.

Access to cheaper, “generic” antiretroviral drugs is a matter of survival in poverty-stricken Africa where the AIDS pandemic affects 30 million people out of a worldwide total of 42 million, according to UN estimates. A US-backed WTO breakthrough on Wednesday, when five key countries involved in trying to resolve the problem agreed on a compromise, had raised hopes for an endorsement by the other states.

But after several hours of meetings being called, delayed and adjourned at WTO headquarters Thursday, divergences arose over the interpretation of the proposed deal. “It became clear it was not a question of two or three countries, it was a great many countries,” Rockwell told reporters.

The unnamed source identified the Philippines as having led other developing countries in saying they had a different understanding of the initial compromise than developed countries.

The issue, which has cast a shadow over global free trade talks since late 2001, will now likely have to be dealt with at the Cancun ministerial meeting Sept. 10-14, Rockwell added.

Trade suits against EU restrictions on biotech food imports and heavy European subsidies for sugar farmers reignited tough disputes yesterday. Officials in Geneva said the WTO had launched a probe into the EU’s refusal to accept most genetically modified organisms (GMOs), which Washington says violates trading rules.

The United States, backed by Canada and Argentina, says that the Europeans, who have not allowed new genetically modified crops to be imported or grown in the EU’s 15 member states since 1998, have shown no willingness to end the embargo.