Vaccine nationalism and the WTO

Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, a group of international economists warned against nationalistic responses. These authors stated that “national trade barriers in a world of internationalized manufacturing processes will make it harder for every nation to produce vital medical supplies.” At the time of that publication, global deaths from COVID-19 stood at 200,000. They have now officially exceeded 5 million, with deaths in the United States at approximately 800,000.

As was clear from the beginning, the pandemic was always going to be a race between the ability of the virus to mutate and the ability of humankind to develop, produce and distribute vaccines. Given that viruses mutate fairly quickly, it is a race that is difficult to win. The emergence of the delta and omicron variants have made it clear that the race is still on, and vaccine nationalism is making winning more difficult.

Vaccine nationalism involves mostly high-income countries producing, buying and hoarding vaccines for their own domestic use to the detriment of other countries. Because the virus knows no borders, this is ultimately self-defeating because it provides the virus more opportunity to mutate. We can see this in the disposal of millions of vaccine doses in the United States, while many African countries have vaccination rates as low as 5 percent. Only approximately 2 percent of global vaccines have been administered in Africa.  

As part of this concern, attention has focused on intellectual property issues. There has been a call for the waiver of these rights for COVID-19 vaccines within the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS). This waiver was originally proposed by India and South Africa and has the support of the Biden administration.

WTO Director General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has firmly emphasized increased equity in access to vaccines, stating that “we cannot accept that in a world where the technology exists to save lives, we let people die because they live in poor countries that have neither the resources, nor the access to vaccines and other medical countermeasures needed to save their populations.” The WTO TRIPS Council is in favor of a “common approach” to overcoming vaccine nationalism.

The European Union (EU) is characterized as being recalcitrant on this issue. The reality is that the EU is broadly in line with the director general’s concern for equity and is calling for a Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health in the case of the COVID-19 pandemic. This action would trigger a set of existing mechanisms for the production of off-patent, generic versions of vaccines via “compulsory licensing.” These mechanisms were the important legacy of the HIV-AIDS pandemic and the activism that took place in that context. They will help a desperate situation.

There is one fly in the ointment, however. Given the role of dispute settlement in all WTO matters, including TRIPS-related issues, the fact that the United States government, under both the Trump and Biden administrations, has sabotaged this system makes it less likely that any TRIPS waiver or production of off-patent vaccines will be fully operational. The reluctance of the Biden administration to correct this aberration is condemnable.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has weighed in on the waiver issue. He has stated: “The time for debate by the members of the World Trade Organization is over. As we face the potential threat of a new coronavirus variant, we must move even more urgently to dismantle the vaccine inequality that undermines our ability to confront this crisis. It’s time for the WTO and our world leaders to step up, to finally put people over profits and make the vaccine technologies available to all, regardless of wealth.”

The question for Sanders is whether he would back this demand with the necessary and associated demand for the WTO’s dispute settlement system to operate effectively. If not, then his call to action will ultimately be ineffectual.

Here is a productive path forward. First, end the U.S. hostage taking behavior at the WTO and allow the dispute settlement system to function. Second, support the EU proposal for a COVID-19 declaration on TRIPS and Public Health to allow existing WTO provisions to come into effect. Third, continue to push for a COVID-19 waiver on TRIPS.

Taking these steps in the reverse order, and blaming the WTO in the process, is not productive and will ultimately lend indirect support to continued vaccine nationalism.

Kenneth A. Reinert is a professor of public policy at the Schar School of Policy and Government of George Mason University.