The Proposal of India and South Africa for a TRIPS Waiver - Dr Muhammad Zaheer Abbas

The TRIPS Waiver: Intellectual Property, Access to Essential Medicines, and the Coronavirus COVID-19

Australian Centre for Health Law Research
QUT Faculty of Business and Law

Friday, 10 December 2021
9:00 am to 5:00 pm
Z1064, Gibson Room, Level 10, Z Block
QUT Gardens Point Campus

11:00 am – 11:20 am
The Proposal of India and South Africa for a TRIPS Waiver
Dr Muhammad Zaheer Abbas (QUT)

Abstract

Situations like the COVID-19 outbreak require international solidarity and broader multilateral collaboration. The response to the COVID-19 pandemic was marked by unilateral nationalistic approaches, advanced purchase agreements, production restrictions and unequal access leading to international inequalities. Pharmaceutical and vaccine manufacturing corporations are inclined to continue their business-as-usual approach to intellectual property (IP) protection even during a pandemic. The routine application of IP protections restricts diversified global production and universal distribution of critically needed health technologies. IP protections bar national governments, especially in resource-poor countries, from adopting a comprehensive strategy to have timely, adequate, and affordable access to COVID-related health technologies as they can be subjected to court litigation and complaints under the WTO rules. In October 2020, India and South Africa submitted to the WTO TRIPS Council a proposal for a temporary waiver of certain provisions of the TRIPS Agreement. This paper provides an overview of the waiver proposal and analyses the evolution of the push for this proposal in light of formal and informal discussions at the WTO. This paper reviews key objections to the waiver proposal and responds to arguments put forward by some governments and patentee corporations against the waiver proposal. This paper argues that the proposed TRIPS waiver is critical for bringing an end to the pandemic by stimulating global manufacturing of and expediting equitable access to vaccines and other COVID-related health technologies.

Biography

Dr. Muhammad Zaheer Abbas is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Faculty of Business and Law, Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Brisbane, Australia. In this role, he is working with Professor Matthew Rimmer on his Australian Research Council Discovery Project ‘Inventing the Future: Intellectual Property and 3D Printing’. In March 2020, he completed PhD in Law at QUT as a recipient of QUT Postgraduate Research Award (QUTPRA). He has published 27 refereed articles, mostly related to intellectual property protection and the public interest. He has also presented 38 conference papers on related topics.

Dr Abbas has undertaken extensive research on public health dimensions of intellectual property laws. He has written about TRIPS Agreement’s public health flexibilities like compulsory licensing (Journal of World Intellectual Property, 2018), parallel importation (Journal of Generic Medicines, 2021), and patent opposition (Global Public Health, 2020). He has evaluated the possibility of invoking trade-related security exceptions (ANZSIL Perspective, 2021), the practical implications of ‘vaccine nationalism’ (South Views 2020), and the importance of localized supply chains (South Views, 2021). He has also analyzed policy options like patent pooling (Journal of Law and the Biosciences, 2020) and tiered pricing (Journal of Generic Medicines, 2020). Abbas has also considered the implications of free trade agreements (Australasian Dispute Resolution Journal, 2018) and evergreening (Journal of Generic Medicines, 2019) for affordable and equitable access to essential medicines. He has been providing expert commentary on the issue of access to vaccines and other COVID-related health technologies during the current pandemic.

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