| Abstrakt: |
The rapid spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which is responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic, has spawned an intense debate on the necessity of a waiver of some provisions of the World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) to increase access to medicines and other medical technologies essential for combating the disease. Through a legal research method, this article explores the potential of the TRIPS waiver as a mechanism for reconciling the conflicting norms of public health with intellectual property rights protection by interpreting the TRIPS provisions backed by relevant legal theories. It argues that while the TRIPS waiver can be an effective legal instrument that accommodates public health concerns of increasing access to medicines and medical technologies, it has, in its current form and text, many flaws that militate against its effectiveness. These flaws are evident in how the TRIPS waiver is couched, notwithstanding that the waiver presents multiple benefits, including furthering re-humanisation, distributive justice and decolonisation goals. The article offers recommendations on how the TRIPS waiver adopted during the WTO’s recently concluded 12th Ministerial Conference could be strengthened to eliminate some of its defects in expanding access to COVID-19 vaccines and other therapeutics products. The research methodology used in this article is the qualitative desktop doctrinal research method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
