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Law360 (February 1, 2021, 2:27 PM EST) -- World Trade Organization leaders urged members to enable widespread access to the novel coronavirus vaccine Monday, calling for cooperation to ensure rapid and expansive distribution of the life-saving treatment.
The WTO's four deputy directors-general, who are effectively running the global trade body as it works to appoint a new leader, issued a joint statement underscoring the urgent need for a widely accessible vaccine.
"The pandemic is a global problem," the deputies said. "This challenge calls for heightened international cooperation, including ensuring the global availability of vaccines ... we call upon members to work together towards making vaccines available to all."
The WTO, alongside the World Health Organization and other global bodies, has emphasized the need for fully liberalized trade flows since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, first for medical supplies and now for vaccines.
WTO members, however, have been locked in a deep rift for months over whether to loosen intellectual property rules as a means of improving vaccine distribution. India and South Africa have led the charge for the waiver of WTO rules, which has been met with firm resistance from the U.S., EU and other powerful pharmaceutical hubs.
The sharp division was on full display at a Jan. 19 meeting of the WTO's Council on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, during which the U.S. insisted that patents and other IP rules were not creating barriers in the global vaccine market.
"IP is fundamental to vital collaborations to develop, manufacture and distribute treatments and cures," the U.S. said at the meeting. "To date, proponents of the proposed waiver have not provided evidence to support their claim that IP has created a widespread, significant access barrier for COVID-19 products."
By contrast, India said that the U.S. and other powerful nations were putting too much trust in their pharmaceutical giants to run point on vaccine distribution through licensing arrangements that do little for developing countries.
"What developed countries have said about the sufficiency of such licensing arrangements for ramping up manufacturing capacities has proven to be wishful thinking, and voluntary licenses, even where they exist, are shrouded in secrecy, the terms and conditions are not transparent and the scope is limited to specific amounts, or for a limited subset of countries, thereby encouraging nationalism," India said.
The WTO leaders' call to action comes days after the EU rolled out new export restrictions on certain vaccine shipments, citing the need to boost distribution among it own citizens.
--Editing by Regan Estes.
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