Pandemic response: Science has delivered; will WTO keep pace?
Brajendra Navnit
Filed on January 13, 2021
The existing flexibilities under the Trips Agreement are not adequate as these were not designed keeping pandemics in mind.
A proposal by India, South Africa and eight other countries has called on the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to exempt member countries from enforcing some patents, and other Intellectual Property (IP) rights under the organisation’s Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, known as Trips, for a limited period of time. It is to ensure that IPRs do not restrict the scaling-up of manufacturing of Covid-19 vaccines and treatments. While a few members have raised concerns about the proposal, a large proportion of the WTO membership supports the proposal. It has also received the backing of various international organisations, multilateral agencies and global civil society.