The Post-Pandemic Order: A Blueprint for Balancing Health and IP Interests in the Age of COVID Variants

Abstract

In December 2021, the World Health Assembly (“WHA”) convened to develop a pandemic response treaty for future pandemics. Unfortunately, as presently envisioned, the resulting pandemic response framework will suffer from many of the same inadequacies that prevented existing frameworks from responding effectively to COVID-19. The threat of new pandemics emerging in the future—and new variants developing in the present—call for a more integrated, robust, comprehensive solution.

This Article lays a blueprint for that solution: a global multilateral Council empowered to (1) investigate developing pandemics; (2) incentivize pharmaceutical companies to rapidly produce vaccines and share them through voluntary licenses or TRIPS compulsory licensing provisions; (3) facilitate the rapid creation of raw material pipelines to vaccine and treatment developers; and (4) resolve related legal disputes to ensure a rapid and coordinated response to emerging diseases and variants.

Keywords: COVID-19, Intellectual Property, Patents, Coronavirus, License, Compulsory Licensing, TRIPS Agreement, Pharmaceuticals, Drugs, International Law, International Treaties, Vaccine, WTO, WIPO, WHO, Trilateral Agreement