Protectionism in the industrial area has not been restricted to textiles. Over the last few years the US has been using the option of introducing ''anti-dumping'' levies to prevent import surges or market disruption as a protectionist device against manufactured imports from the developing countries. The most blatant example is that of steel, where industry and union pressure led to the introduction of levies that violate WTO norms. Not surprisingly, the WTO's dispute settlement panel has already ruled against the US in cases filed by some countries, and is expected to do the same in others, including one filed by India.

These developments have deprived most developing countries of even the limited benefits they were to get from the Uruguay Round, and made them suspicious of claims that a new round would bring further gains. Not surprisingly, they are demanding something in return for their own liberalisation efforts, which have substantially increased the access of developed-country producers and investors to their markets. This makes a review of the implementation of the Uruguay Round agreement, and a revision of that agreement to accommodate developing country interests, their principal concern.

Of all the Uruguay Round agreements, the TRIPS agreement is possibly the one in greatest need of revision.  The TRIPS Agreement protects intellectual property rights in all WTO member countries and constrains the production of imitation products. It is estimated that the number of patents granted worldwide in 1995 was about 710,000 and that at the end of 1995 about 3.7 million patents were in force in the world. Since then, there has been an increase in patenting activity, dominantly by large companies based in the North. Thus, it has been estimated that industrial countries hold 97 per cent of all patents, and that 90 per cent of all technology and product patents are held by MNCs. Privately, negotiators acknowledge that the TRIPS Agreement was to a great extent driven by MNC interests rather than the requirements of citizens across the world. The developing country case for revision has many grounds:

• It has been stressed by the representatives of several developing countries in the WTO that the objective of fostering the transfer and dissemination of technology, which is already explicitly stated in Article 7 of the TRIPS Agreement, should be made operational through special provisions. This is because, after a period in the early 1990s when technology access constraints were relaxed somewhat, there has been a tightening up after TRIPS was signed. Also, the stronger protection to invention which has been granted under TRIPS makes it more difficult for industries in developing countries to adapt and use, through reverse engineering and other devices, developed elsewhere. This reduces one of the more obvious means of "catching up" by late industrialisers, and closes one of the more important sources of technology particularly for small and medium enterprises across the world.
   

• Much technological progress in the recent past has been in the field of biotechnology and genetic engineering, which in turn has been based on generic resources which are often available only in the tropics (that is, mainly developing countries). Increasingly, while research organised by private corporations into genetic resources has drawn on the traditional knowledge of indigenous communities, these communities and peoples themselves do not benefit from the patents or even from the resulting inventions. Reconciling the TRIPS agreement with the Convention on Biological Diversity and accommodating "farmers' rights", defined by the FAO as the "rights arising from the past, present and future contribution of farmers in conserving, improving and making available plant genetic resources" must become one of the focal points of renegotiation.
   

• Article 27.3 (b) of TRIPS says that members may also exclude from patentability plants and animals other than micro-organisms, and essentially biological processes for the production of plants and animals other than non-biological and micro-biological processes. However, members shall provide for the protection of plant varieties either by patents or an effective sui generis system or by any combination thereof. These provisions were to be reviewed after four years, but no systematic review has been put into place at the WTO.  In this context, a recent proposal of the African Group of WTO members is significant, as it questions the TRIPS Agreement's requirement for mandatory patenting of some life forms and some natural processes. It calls for a clarification that plants, animals and micro-organisms should not be patentable, and that natural processes that produce plants, animals and other living organisms should also not be patentable. The paper also puts forward the view that by stipulating compulsory patenting of micro-organisms (which are natural living things) and micro-biological processes (which are natural processes), Article 27.3(b) contravenes the basic tenets of patent laws: that substances and processes that exist in nature are a discovery and not an invention and thus are not patentable. The African countries have thus proposed a review of TRIPS which would : (a) clarify that developing countries can opt for a national sui generis law that protects innovations of indigenous and local farming communities; (b) allow the continuation of traditional farming practices, including the right to save and exchange seeds and sell their harvests; (c) prevent anti-competitive rights or practices that threatens food sovereignty of people in developing countries; (d) harmonise Article 27.3(b) with the provisions of the CBD and the FAO's International Undertaking, which take into account the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity, the protection of the rights and knowledge of indigenous and local communities, and the promotion of farmers rights. These proposals have been supported by many other developing countries.

It has also been pointed out that the implementation of public health policies may be restrained by the implementation of TRIPS. It forces all countries ­ rich and poor ­ to adopt the same, strict guidelines on respecting corporate patents, trademarks and copyrights. The TRIPS guarantees monopoly ownership over, among other things, pharmaceutical patents; thus a WTO member may not be able to suspend intellectual property rights even to address critical public health issues. Once an approach focused on public health is accepted, several articles may require revision, for instance, Article 27.1 in order to exclude the patentability of "essential medicines" listed by WHO; Article 30 so as to incorporate an explicit recognition of an "early working" exception for the approval of generic products before the expiration of a patent; and, Article 31 in order to clarify the right to grant and the scope of compulsory licenses for public health reasons. One of the most important areas of public concern relates to the availability and prices of life-saving drugs. The move from process patents to product patents dramatically reduces the ability of companies in developing countries to produce cheaper versions of important life-saving drugs, especially those relating to cancer and HIV/AIDS. The extent to which this can make a difference is apparent in the very wide differences in drug prices that can be observed in India, where product patents are were not in force and other developing countries in Asia where such patents were allowed in the 1990s.