Covid vaccine scarcity largely artificial - countries and companies must share knowledge
The Biden administration’s decision to stop opposing a proposed Covid-19 waiver of certain intellectual property rights under World Trade Organization rules is a welcome move. But ending the pandemic also requires scaling up knowledge and technology transfer, as well as public production of vaccine supplies.
While the rapid development of Covid-19 vaccines was a truly impressive achievement, it has been tarnished by constraints on global vaccine supply and the related inequities in distribution. Photo: Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images
Tue, 11 May, 2021 - 06:29
Jayati Ghosh
The recent decision by the Biden administration’s to stop opposing a proposed Covid-19 waiver of certain intellectual property (IP) rights under World Trade Organization rules is a welcome move.
The shock of COVID-19 is definitely exposing those vulnerabilities.
A new World Trade Organization (WTO) report, Strengthening Africa’s capacity to trade, addresses the disruptions to trade due to the pandemic and outlines the ways the international body is working to encourage trade flows on the continent. As LDCs, countries get additional international support with development assistance and with trade, and 33 of the 46 LDCs today are in Africa.
What does the report say of African LDCs and global trade? What support are countries being given to best weather this COVID-19 storm?
Declines and setbacks
A March 2021 WTO forecast has trade likely to remain below pre-pandemic levels for some time, but predicts an increase of world merchandise trade to 8.0% in 2021, after falling 5.3% in 2020.
Jonathan Berger / The Conversation Recognising that IP may well be abused, TRIPS allows countries to adopt public health safeguards and flexibilities. US Trade Representative Katherine Tai. Photo by Inter-American Dialogue via Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 2.0)
“Extraordinary times … call for extraordinary measures”, said Katherine Tai, the US Trade Representative, last week as she announced that the Biden administration supports waiving “IP protections on Covid-19 vaccines to help end the pandemic”.
Given the hard-line position on IP adopted by previous administrations, regardless of which party was in power, this was quite extraordinary.
But what does it actually mean, and will it make any difference?
Tripped up: All you need to know about the Covid-19 TRIPS waiver and what it may achieve for SA (and what it won’t) Franziska Sucker
Franziska Sucker
is associate professor at the School of Law, University of the Witwatersrand
On 5 May 2021, following enormous pressure, ambassador Katherine Tai announced the US government’s support for waiving intellectual property (IP) protection for Covid-19 vaccines. The following morning, Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, declared the EU ready to discuss the “US proposal” even while some European governments, especially Germany, vehemently opposed the idea.
This happened in response to the October 2020 joint waiver request made by South Africa and India. They proposed a waiver allowing World Trade Organization (WTO) members to suspend their obligations to apply several (
Tsai, Lee & Chen Patent Attorneys & Attorneys at Law - Taiwan By
Nick JC Lan
Taiwan is an innovation-driven economy, ranked 12 out of 141 economies according to the World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Report 2019. As a member of the World Trade Organisation since 2002, Taiwan’s IP laws are amended from time to time in compliance with the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights to keep up with international legislative trends. The latest Taiwan Trademark Act amendment entered into force in December 2016, in which the law has expanded the liability of preparatory trademark infringement activities such as manufacturing or selling labels, packages or containers bearing counterfeit trademarks.