Introduction

Trial Chamber I of the International Tribunal (the “ Trial Chamber”) is seized of a case which concerns events surrounding the military encirclement of the city of Sarajevo in 1992 by Bosnian Serb forces.

The Prosecution alleges that “The siege of Sarajevo, as it came to be popularly known, was an episode of such notoriety in the conflict in the former Yugoslavia that one must go back to World War II to find a parallel in European history. Not since then had a professional army conducted a campaign of unrelenting violence against the inhabitants of a European city so as to reduce them to a state of medieval deprivation in which they were in constant fear of death. In the period covered in this Indictment, there was nowhere safe for a Sarajevan, not at home, at school, in a hospital, from deliberate attack.”

Osbaldo Torres was tried by jury, convicted of first degree murder and other charges, and received the death penalty in the Oklahoma County District Court, Case No. CF-1993-4302. This Court affirmed Torres's conviction for murder, and the United States Supreme Court denied Torres's petition for certiorari. This Court denied Torres's first Application for Post-Conviction Relief on August 4,1998. Torres's application for federal habeas relief was denied. This Court subsequently denied Torres's second Application for Post-Conviction Relief. Torres's execution date is set for Tuesday, May 18,2004. On April 29,2004, Torres filed a Subsequent Application for Post-Conviction Relief. The State filed a Response on May 11,2004. Briefs were also filed on behalf of amici curiae the Government of the Republic of Mexico and international law experts and former diplomats.

Having regard to paragraphs 1, 3 and 4 of Article IX of the Marrakesh Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization ("the WTO Agreement");

Conducting the functions of the Ministerial Conference in the interval between meetings pursuant to paragraph 2 of Article IV of the WTO Agreement;

Noting the Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health (WT/MIN(01)/DEC/2) (the "Declaration") and, in particular, the instruction of the Ministerial Conference to the Council for TRIPS contained in paragraph 6 of the Declaration to find an expeditious solution to the problem of the difficulties that WTO Members with insufficient or no manufacturing capacities in the pharmaceutical sector could face in making effective use of compulsory licensing under the TRIPS Agreement and to report to the General Council before the end of 2002;