Law Commons^™

Vaccine Politics: Law And Inequality In The Pandemic Response To Covid-19, Matthew M. Kavanagh, Renu Singh

O'Neill Institute Papers

International mechanisms failed to achieve equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines—prolonging and deepening the pandemic. To understand why, we conduct process tracing of the first year of international policymaking on vaccine equity. We find that, in the absence of a single venue for global negotiation, two competing law and policy paradigms emerged. One focused on demand and voluntary action by states and firms, while the alternative focused on opening knowledge and expanding production through national and international law. While these could have been complementary, power inequalities between key actors kept the second paradigm from gaining traction on the global agenda. The …

Intellectual Property And The Politics Of Public Good In Covid-19: Framing Law, Institutions, And Ideas During Trips Waiver Negotiations At The Wto, Sara E. Fischer, Lucia Vitale, Akinyi Lisa Agutu, Matthew M. Kavanagh

O'Neill Institute Papers

Context: To facilitate the manufacturing of COVID-19 medical products, in October 2020, India and South Africa proposed a waiver of certain WTO intellectual property (IP) provisions. After 18 months, a narrow agreement that did little for vaccine access passed the ministerial, despite the pandemic’s impact on global trade, which the WTO is mandated to safeguard.

Methods: The authors conducted a content analysis of WTO legal texts, key actor statements, media reporting, and the WTO’s procedural framework to explore legal, institutional, and ideational explanations for the delay.

Findings: IP waivers are neither legally complex nor unprecedented within WTO …