Only doing the opposite of the plan through a sui generis inclusive right results in a Global Health Security framework and Commons that eradicate future pandemics, warming, and nationalism

7. The Covid-19 vaccine as commons: the sui generis inclusive right

Across the world there have been important campaigns related to the issue of vaccine access and allocation, such as the Free The Vaccine initiative which demands that ‘Covid-19 diagnostic tools, treatments and vaccines must be available to everyone everywhere’,146 or academics, including Boschiero, who stated the nature of vaccines as ‘global common/public goods’, despite being currently regulated as ‘private market goods’.147 The question to be answered now is how this desirable shift to a Commons Regime can be realized from a normative perspective. 7. The Covid-19 vaccine as commons: the sui generis inclusive right Across the world there have been important campaigns related to the issue of vaccine access and allocation, such as the Free The Vaccine initiative which demands that ‘Covid-19 diagnostic tools, treatments and vaccines must be available to everyone everywhere’,146 or academics, including Boschiero, who stated the nature of vaccines as ‘global common/public goods’, despite being currently regulated as ‘private market goods’.147 The question to be answered now is how this desirable shift to a Commons Regime can be realized from a normative perspective.

The vaccine and other life-saving treatments against Covid19 should be considered as Commons, since they are compatible with the two important and general features that every Commons should have: the property has to be capable of being monopolized by private owners; the claim of the public should be stronger than the one of private people or entities, in the sense that a certain good would be more efficient and valuable if used by an indefinite and unlimited number of people.148 Specifically, it has been already discussed that a vaccine is capable of being monopolized by pharmaceutical companies. This is possible from a legal perspective because, although the starting point can be something natural such as mRNA, ultimately in order to develop and produce a vaccine there is the implementation of a complex technology which is made by humans, and thus vaccines can be granted different patents. Moreover, as the second requirement to be ‘commonized’, the vaccine and other life-saving treatments would be more beneficial if accessed and used by the public at large for several reasons that have been discussed throughout this paper. First, only if the vaccine is administered in every corner of the world, there is the chance to end a global pandemic, by reaching a herd immunity and avoiding that some new strains imperil the effcacy of the vaccine itself in the future. As affirmed in an impactful way by Meijer et al, ‘In a pandemic, nobody is safe until everyone is safe’.149 Second, an equitable access and allocation of vaccines and other life-saving treatments towards the public at large would contribute to institute a GHS that is human and equity-oriented and not just focused on the nationals’ safety. The establishment of such a system would also allow to face future pandemics or serious global issues, such as climate change, in a more efficient and responsible way. Third, it would simply be fair to recognize the efforts that the public itself put in developing and producing these vaccines, since most of R&D in this pandemic—but also beyond—received public funding, and ultimately the contribution of taxpayers. Fourth, the vaccine as a public good perhaps would constitute a symbol against the nationalisms and xenophobia that have been spreading around the world also in this context, since some wealthy countries that have large supplies of vaccines refused to vaccinate migrants and asylum seekers, by prioritizing their nationals.150 This could lead to the implementation of a GHS which is human and equity-oriented. And it might constitute fnally a realization among the developed countries in the West that, although many viral diseases have been eradicated in that part of the world, in least-developed and developing countries there are ongoing health and access issues that need to be tackled and not ignored.