COVID-19 vaccines: intellectual-property challenges and transnational-legal opportunities

Abstract

In October 2020, India and South Africa proposed the World Trade Organization (WTO) to temporarily suspend trade-related intellectual property rights to COVID-19 vaccines and technologies. The proposal aims to ensure that not only the wealthiest countries will be able to access and afford those vaccines and technologies. After the proposal was presented, analysts claim that a “vaccine apartheid” has already been created. In response, in March 2021, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Director-General of the WTO, invited countries and manufacturers to implement a framework that would provide developing countries with more opportunities to access COVID-19 technologies. On April 9, 2021, the UVic Graduate Student Law & Society Research Group hosted an academic discussion between Professor Victor V. Ramraj (University of Victoria-Faculty of Law) and Professor Aman Gebru (Duquesne University-School of Law). Both speakers 1) explained the proposal that India and South Africa presented to the WTO; 2) discussed other initiatives to facilitate access to COVID-19 vaccines and technologies like the COVAX initiative, which is co-led by the World Health Organization (WHO), CEPI, GAVI, and UNICEF; and 3) explored relevant legal, socio-economic, ethical, political, and international issues that could facilitate or restrict access to COVID-19 vaccines and technologies. Therefore, this event was one of the first (if not the first) thoughtful critical-legal discussions about the challenges and opportunities emerging from initiatives aiming to ensure global equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines and treatments, such as the initiative proposed by India and South Africa or COVAX.