TRIPS collapses pandemic response

Neha Gupt 23 , [Neha Gupt is a writer for the Peter A. Allard School of Law," The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of IP Law: the TRIPS Agreement and the COVID-19 Vaccine," The University of British Columbia, , 12/7/23] Cogito

The Bad. The most salient critique of the TRIPS agreement has been the prioritization of the interests of developed states and transnational corporations over the interests of developing nations (Defossexz, 2017). While the TRIPS Agreement may be heralded as a protector of innovation and creativity, in developing countries the same does not hold true. Instead, in developing countries, the TRIPS Agreement has been a means for companies to encroach on individuals’ basic right to health (Sekalala et al., 2021). Pharmaceutical companies have been able to excuse themselves from sharing life-saving medical information, citing the protections afforded to them by the TRIPS Agreement (Sekalala et al., 2021; Sirleaf, 2022). Therefore, when a credible vaccine for COVID-19 had been created, rather than it being distributed globally to prevent the spread, pharmaceutical companies refused to give up their patents under the TRIPS Agreement (Sekalala et al., 2021). The Ugly. On an international front, one of the major exacerbating forces of the COVID-19 pandemic was the lack of accessibility and transparency regarding the vaccine, largely due to the TRIPS Agreement (Sirleaf, 2021). Thus, at the height of the pandemic, as pharmaceutical companies raced to develop a cure to the virus, the agreement did what it always set out to do – protect innovation and stimulate trade (Sirleaf, 2021). However, in doing so, the agreement also led to the uneven distribution of the vaccine in developing countries, leading to what some academics refer to as the “vaccine apartheid” (Sirleaf, 2021). This geographically-driven gatekeeping of the vaccine led to pharmaceutical companies prioritizing countries and people based on wealth, leading to a self-created global supply crisis of the vaccine (Sirleaf, 2021). While Canada had enough vaccines to immunize all of their citizens 10 times, those in the Global South were still fighting for access to these preventative measures (Sirleaf, 2022). In October 2020, India and South Africa suggested a waiver of the TRIPS Agreement until the vaccine was available globally and a majority of the population developed immunity (Sirleaf, 2022). Unfortunately, it was not until 2022 that the WTO finally decided to waive the TRIPS Agreement, but added a stipulation that essentially rendered their decision useless (Sirleaf, 2022). The stipulation proposed that developing countries would have access to vaccine patents, but countries with the capacity to manufacture the vaccine were encouraged to disregard the waiver (Sirleaf, 2022).. Hence, this stipulation essentially ignored the fact that these countries needed access to patents before they could even begin manufacturing anything (Sirleaf, 2022). Although the World Health Organization did try to intervene and create COVAX, a global vaccine-sharing enterprise, the damage had been done (Sirleaf, 2021). By prioritizing profits over human rights and manipulating intellectual property law, a two-week lockdown turned into a three-year and counting debacle.