“The World Trade Organization’s 12th Ministerial Conference (MC12) was a dismal failure for the 85% of people in low-income countries that have not had a single dose of COVID-19 vaccine, for the billions of people worldwide without access to COVID-19 tests or outpatient oral antiviral treatments...
In October of 2020, foreseeing the deadly consequences of vaccine apartheid, South Africa and India submitted a proposal to the WTO that it temporarily waive intellectual property protections enshrined in the WTO TRIPS Agreement for COVID-19 health technologies in order to support expanded producti...
Every news report that says the leaked Quad text is a promising compromise is wrong. Not nearly enough attention is being paid to the fact that this text does not require or incentivize technology transfer (access to trade secret protected data, info, manufacturing know-how, quality control protoco...
Opponents of the WTO TRIPS waiver proposal, especially Big Pharma, are trotting out a stale set of talking points to oppose the waiver, each of which is easily rebutted: IP is not a barrier: If this were true, why does industry simultaneously argue that IP is essential ...
The confetti is still flying after the Biden administration’s climbdown from obstructing text-based discussions at the World Trade Organization (WTO). The U.S. government now supports allowing countries to temporarily waive enforcement of intellectual property (IP) rights on at least some COVID-1...
On the same day as a meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Council on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Council) in Geneva, where the Biden administration was explicitly opposing a proposal from South Africa and India, with support of the majority of the WTO’s me...
President Biden’s Bystander Role Aids and Abets this Unconscionable Obstruction The European Union (EU), UK, Switzerland, along with a coterie of other fence-sitting nations, including the US, are blocking meaningful progress on a revised waiver proposal at the World Trade Organization (WTO) t...
If the European Union’s Communication to the TRIPS Council – Urgent Policy Responses to the COVID-19 Crisis has no real substance, then it is fair to conclude that its true purpose is disinformation, diversion, and delay. The Communication purports to address clarifications needed to make exist...
MSF, Oxfam, Partners In Health, Human Rights Watch, Public Citizen, MoveOn, Indivisible, Unions, Faith Groups, Citizens Trade Campaign, Health GAP, and More Urge U.S. Support for Waiver at March 1-2 WTO General Council WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. consumer, faith, health, labor, human rights, developme...