TRIPS Waiver Would Further Undermine the WTO's Credibility
The World Trade Organization's 164 member countries just received the text of a proposal that — if adopted — would discourage medical research and threaten global economic growth.WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala recently presented member countries with a draft agreement — hashed out by negotiators from the United States, the European Union, India, and South Africa — that waives intellectual property protections on Covid vaccines. Rumors of the agreement had circulated for months, but now the text is publicly available for all to see.It's as bad as many international trade experts feared. The waiver would set a dangerous precedent — all in response to a "problem" that doesn't exist.Scientists, patients, and everyone who believes in the importance of international trade can only hope that the waiver is rejected when it is considered at the upcoming WTO Ministerial Conference in June.
The agreement would waive protections provided by the WTO agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), which has played an essential role in supporting innovation and the development of life-saving medicines, diagnostics, and therapies for more than 25 years. More recently, these IP protections have enabled researchers to safely share technology and data across borders in ways that helped power the development of multiple Covid vaccines in record time.Yet some WTO members — most notably India and South Africa — have insisted from the beginning of the pandemic that waiving the IP protections provided by TRIPS would be essential to ensure an adequate global supply of vaccines. Interestingly, these countries are two of the world's largest producers of generic drugs with a lot to gain from any precedent that weakens global IP protections.The entire premise of this waiver is simply wrong. Global supply of Covid vaccines is a non-issue today: More than 13 billion doses were manufactured as of March 2022, with billions more expected by year's end.In fact, many countries have destroyed expiring Covid vaccine supplies because of an inability to administer them in a timely fashion. In Nigeria, nearly 1 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine expired in November 2021 before they could be used. The Africa Centers for Disease Control has called for a pause in vaccine donations because of distributional roadblocks and vaccine hesitancy.What is hindering global access to Covid vaccines is not IP protection, but rather such factors as trade barriers and customs bottlenecks; lack of storage capability; last-mile distribution challenges, particularly in rural areas; a shortage of well-trained front-line health care workers; and, above all, high levels of vaccine hesitancy in both the developed and developing world.A TRIPS waiver would be fraught with negative unintended consequences, starting with the global proliferation of shoddy — and even counterfeit — Covid vaccines. The waiver is nominally restricted to developing nations, but China and Russia won't hesitate to steal whatever isn't nailed down. Already, South Africa and India have announced a partnership to research, develop, produce, and distribute vaccines with China and Russia, two of the world's biggest intellectual property scofflaws. One can only imagine what these nations have in mind.Perhaps worse, a weakening of TRIPS will discourage American and other innovators and manufacturers from stepping up when their efforts are needed during a future global health crisis.Rather than wasting time on this misguided proposal, WTO members should focus on removing remaining barriers to the effective distribution of vaccines. They can begin by eliminating restrictions on vaccine exports. They can eliminate tariffs on vaccines, their ingredients, and the equipment required to make them. At home, they can improve their customs clearance procedures to remove any unnecessary impediments to healthcare imports and exports. And they can fully and immediately implement the WTO's Trade Facilitation Agreement expediting the movement and clearance of goods in transit.It is no secret that, of late, the WTO has been underperforming. The negotiating arm of the organization has failed to achieve any meaningful trade-liberalizing outcomes for many years now. The organization also has failed to confront more fundamental challenges like the trade-distorting impact of China's non-market economy. It would be a shame if the biggest "accomplishment" of the WTO's first ministerial meeting since 2017 is a substantial weakening of the international rules that have done so much to spur innovation and improve global health.Dennis C. Shea served as Deputy U.S. Trade Representative and U.S. Ambassador to the World Trade Organization from 2018-2021.
