Science
has delivered, will the WTO deliver?
TRIPS
waiver proposal from India, South Africa and other members
By
Brajendra Navnit, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of India to
WTO
A
proposal by India,
South Africa
and eight
other countries calls on the
World Trade Organisation
(WTO)
to exempt member countries from enforcing some patents, and other
Intellectual
Property (IP)
rights
under the organization’s Agreement
on Trade-Related
Aspects
of Intellectual
Property
Rights,
known as TRIPS, for a limited period of time.
It is
to ensure that IPRs do not restrict the rapid scaling- up of
manufacturing of COVID-19 vaccines and treatments. While
a few members have raised concerns about the proposal, a large
proportion
of the WTO membership supports the proposal.
It
has also received the backing of various international organizations,
multilateral agencies and global civil society.
Unprecedented
times call for unorthodox measures. We saw this in the efficacy of
strict lockdowns
for a limited period,
as a policy intervention, in curtailing the spread of the pandemic.
International Monetary Fund (IMF) in its October 2020 edition of
World Economic Outlook states “…However,
the risk of worse growth outcomes than
projected
remains sizable. If the virus resurges, progress
on
treatments and vaccines is slower than anticipated,
or
countries’ access to them remains unequal, economic activity could
be lower than expected, with
renewed
social distancing and tighter lockdowns”.
The situation appears to be grimmer than predicted, we have already
lost 7% of economic output from the baseline scenario projected in
2019. It translates to a loss of more than USD 6 trillion of global
GDP. Even
a 1% improvement in global GDP from the baseline scenario will add
more than USD 800 billion in global output, offsetting the loss
certainly
of
a much
lower order
to a
sector of economy
on account of the Waiver.
Merely
a signal to ensure timely and affordable access to vaccines and
treatments will work as a big confidence booster for demand revival
in the economy. With the emergence of successful vaccines, there
appears to be some hope on the horizon. But how will these be made
accessible and affordable to global population? The fundamental
question is whether there will be enough of Covid-19 vaccines to go
around. As things stand, even the most optimistic scenarios today
cannot assure access to Covid-19 vaccines and therapeutics for the
majority of the population, in rich as well as poor countries, by the
end of 2021. All the members of the WTO have agreed on one account
that there is an urgent need to scale-up the manufacturing capacity
for vaccines and therapeutics to meet the massive global needs. The
TRIPS Waiver Proposal seeks to fulfil this need by ensuring that IP
barriers do not come in the way of such scaling up of manufacturing
capacity.
Why
existing flexibilities under the TRIPS Agreement are not enough
The
existing flexibilities under the TRIPS Agreement are not adequate as
these were not designed keeping pandemics in mind. Compulsory
licenses are issued on a country by country, case by case and product
by product basis, where every jurisdiction with an IP regime would
have to issue separate compulsory licenses, practically making
collaboration among countries extremely onerous. While we encourage
the use of TRIPS flexibilities, the same are time-consuming and
cumbersome to implement. Hence, only their use cannot ensure the
timely access of affordable vaccines and treatments. Similarly, we
have not seen a very encouraging progress on WHO’s
Covid19-Technology Access Pool or the C-TAP initiative, which
encourages voluntary contribution of IP, technology and data to
support the global sharing and scale-up of the manufacturing of
COVID- 19 medical products. Voluntary Licenses, even where they
exist, are shrouded in secrecy. Their terms and conditions are not
transparent. Their scope is limited to specific amounts or for a
limited subset of countries, thereby encouraging nationalism rather
than true international collaboration.
Why
is there a need to go beyond existing global cooperation initiatives?
Global
cooperation initiatives such as the COVAX Mechanism and the
ACT-Accelerator are inadequate to meet the massive global needs of
7.8 billion people. The ACT-A initiative aims to procure 2 billion
doses of vaccines by the end of next year and distribute them fairly
around the world. With a two-dose regime, however, this will only
cover 1 billion people. That means that even if ACT-A is fully
financed and successful, which is not the case presently, there would
not be enough vaccines for the majority of the global population.
Past
experience
During
the initial few months of the current pandemic, we have seen that
shelves were emptied by those who had access to masks, PPEs,
sanitizers, gloves and other essential Covid-19 items even without
their immediate need. The same should not happen to vaccines.
Eventually, the world was able to ramp up manufacturing of Covid-19
essentials as there were no IP barriers hindering that. At present,
we need the same pooling of IP rights and know-how for scaling up the
manufacturing of vaccines and treatments, which unfortunately has not
been forthcoming, necessitating the need for the Waiver.
It
is the pandemic – an extraordinary, once in a lifetime event –
that has mobilized the collaboration of multiple stakeholders. It is
knowledge and skills held by scientists, researchers, public health
experts and universities that have enabled the cross-country
collaborations and enormous public funding that has facilitated the
development of vaccines in record time – and not alone IP!
Way
forward
The
TRIPS waiver proposal is a targeted and proportionate response to the
exceptional public health emergency that the world faces today. Such
a Waiver is well-within the provisions of Article IX of the Marrakesh
Agreement which established the WTO. It can help in ensuring that
human lives are not lost for want of a timely and affordable access
to vaccines. The adoption of the Waiver will also re-establish WTO’s
credibility and show that multilateral trading system continues to be
relevant and can deliver in times of a crisis. Now is the time for
WTO members to act and adopt the Waiver to save lives and help in
getting the economy back on the revival path quickly.
While
making the vaccines available
was a test of science, making them accessible
and affordable
is going to be a test of humanity. History should remember us for the
“AAA
rating”
i.e. for Availability, Accessibility and Affordability of Covid19
vaccines and treatments and not for a single “A
rating”
for Availability only. Our future generations deserve nothing less.
***
