‘Equity’ in the Pandemic Treaty: The False Hope of ‘Access and Benefit-Sharing’

Abstract

During COVID-19 the international community repeatedly called for the equitable distribution of vaccines and other medical countermeasures. However, there was a substantial gap between this rhetoric and state action. High-income countries secured significantly more doses than they required, leaving many low-income countries unable to vaccinate their populations. Current negotiations for the new Pandemic Treaty under the World Health Organization (WHO) attempt to narrow the gap between rhetoric and behaviour by building the concept of equity into the Treaty’s substantive content. But equity is difficult to define, much less to operationalize. Presently, WHO member states appear to have chosen “access and benefit sharing” (ABS) as the sole mechanism for operationalizing equity in the Treaty. This paper examines ABS as a mechanism, its use in public health, and argues that ABS is fundamentally flawed, unable to achieve equity. It proposes other options for an equitable international response to future pandemic threats.

Keywords: public international law, benefit sharing, equity, pandemic, COVID-19, solidarity, pathogens, global health law, Global health law, Access and Benefit Sharing, convention on biodiversity, Nagoya protocol