LONDON - Leading economists Jayati Ghosh and Joseph Stiglitz and the Pan-African director of Oxfam, Peter Kamalingin, have called President Cyril Ramaphosa to reject the “misleading and ineffectual” compromise proposal that has emerged from World Trade Organisation negotiations for a COVID-19 intellectual property waiver.
The letter commends Ramaphosa’s leadership on access to the COVID-19 tools “that can facilitate and sustain socio-economic recovery and protect lives and livelihoods in South Africa, India and many other developing countries”, but warns the proposed compromise would fail to make a difference in battling COVID-19.
It comes after a compromise proposal was leaked from the European Union and the United States negotiations with South Africa and India over a temporary waiver of the trade-related aspects of intellectual property (TRIPS) agreement for COVID-19 technologies, aimed at allowing low and middle-income countries to manufacture vaccines, tests and treatments. The proposal has not been agreed upon by member countries, according to the WTO director-general.
Ghosh, Stiglitz and Kamalingin warn that the proposal “does not waive the intellectual property barriers necessary to deliver any meaningful access” to vaccines, treatments, or tests and actively “adds new “burdensome conditions” on countries using non-voluntary licensing that are worse than the status quo.
They criticize the leaked text for failing to remove other IP barriers beyond patents that “thwart COVID vaccine production, including protection of undisclosed information” and say that this does not meet the leaders’ stated demands for “a comprehensive waiver of all blocking intellectual property barriers”.
The proposal also covers only COVID-19 vaccines, excluding treatments and diagnostics that could be saving lives now, especially where vaccines are in short supply. These tools are a “crucial part of an arsenal to prevent, treat and contain COVID-19”, the letter says.
“A bad deal is worse than no deal”, they say, offering to “strongly support” Ramaphosa should he reject the proposal. The proposed text “reflects the interests of multinational pharmaceutical companies in preserving the deadly status quo”, they say, “In contrast to your leadership for a meaningful waiver of IP barriers.”
The letter accuses the European Union of upholding a “belligerent blockade of any actual waiver of IP barriers“ and the United States of insisting “that the IP waiver it supports be limited to vaccines.”
It comes after the People’s Vaccine Alliance, the global civil society campaign supporting the waiver, highlighted that the EU had “climbed down and finally admitted that intellectual property rules and pharmaceutical monopolies are a barrier to vaccinating the world”, but that the proposal “is not the comprehensive TRIPS waiver demanded by over 100 governments” and would not bring an end to vaccine apartheid
More than 130 former world leaders, Nobel laureates, leading scientists, economists, humanitarians, faith leaders, business leaders, trade unionists, and celebrities marked the two-year anniversary of the World Health Organization declaring COVID-19 a pandemic last week by calling on world leaders to support a comprehensive TRIPS waiver at the World Trade Organization (WTO).
