EU yet to firm up position on patent waiver for COVID vaccines even after virtual meet with India
Secretary (West) in the Ministry of External Affairs Vikas Swarup said India will be watching the evolving EU position on the matter.
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NEW DELHI: The European Union on Saturday did not provide a clear position on whether it supports a proposal to temporarily waive patents on COVID-19 vaccines after the issue was discussed at a virtual India-EU meeting.
Secretary (West) in the Ministry of External Affairs Vikas Swarup said at a media briefing that Prime Minister Narendra Modi invited the EU to support the proposal by India and South Africa to waive patents on COVID-19 vaccines so that there can be equitable vaccine access for the entire world.
Over the past one and a half years or so, the pandemic has changed many things in our lives. It may continue to bring in more changes as the consequences of the pandemic unfold. Such change will not only be due to the devastating economic impact of the pandemic but also because of the geo-political dynamics that will emerge from the crisis.
One of the important ramifications of the pandemic is the change in the world order. The pandemic has emphasised the need for a stronger global community. The need for a meaningful globalisation has been felt much more than even before. However, the spirit of globalisation became weaker much before the outbreak of the pandemic. A number of shifts were observed in the global geo-political order with implications for the global economy as well. Countries were resorting to protectionism increasingly in an attempt to save their domestic economies. There were increasingly more restrictions on movements of goods and services even though in a globalised
China, WTO need to upgrade overdue digital trade rules
Over the years, the digital economy has developed greatly throughout the world. But World Trade Organization (WTO) digital trade rules have stagnated. Since the new Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala took office in February, reforms regarding digital trade rules are facing greater challenges and opportunities. Our research found that there will be mutual promotion of digital trade rules between the WTO and China, which has been a member of the organization for 20 years.
Firstly, the development of WTO digital trade rules has stagnated, and the existing rules system only provides limited support for the development of digital trade.
Their comments follow White House support for waiving the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights agreement under the World Trade Organization, which has effectively provided pharmaceutical companies monopoly control over vaccine production, potentially locking out poor countries from expanding their supplies during the coronavirus pandemic.
Waiving those protections could allow other countries to make copycat vaccines without fear or legal action or sanctions under global trade agreements.
Dr Anthony Fauci has rejected criticisms from drugmakers that lifting patent protections will prevent them from scaling up production.
“They can scale up,” he told ABC’s
This Week on Sunday. “You’ve got to give them credit – they’ve really just really done something that is really quite impressive in the way they’ve gotten their vaccine supply up and out for the rest of the world.”
A TRIPS waiver is useful but not a magic pill
Updated:
Updated:
May 10, 2021 07:44 IST
The U.S.-supported move will have an effect if countries simultaneously address non-IP bottlenecks among other things
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The U.S.-supported move will have an effect if countries simultaneously address non-IP bottlenecks among other things
The United States has finally relented and declared its support for a temporary waiver of the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement for COVID-19 vaccines at the World Trade Organisation (WTO). In October 2020, India and South Africa, at the WTO, proposed waiving Sections 1, 4, 5, and 7 of Part II of the TRIPS agreement (covering copyrights, industrial designs, patents, and undisclosed trade information) related to the prevention, containment, or treatment of COVID-19.