Switzerland and other western countries violated international law by refusing to remove intellectual property rights from vaccines against the coronavirus, said a United Nations committee. They failed to honour their commitments in terms of guaranteeing non-discrimination.

In a decision taken on Wednesday and made public in Geneva on Thursday, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), which does not speak on behalf of the UN, also attacked the United States, Britain and Germany. Although the World Health Organization (WHO) lifted its maximum alert a few months ago, the CERD shares the WHO’s view that Covid-19 remains a major public health problem.

In its view, minorities and groups exposed to violations of the Convention against Racial Discrimination have been most affected. In several developing countries, less than 1% of the population has received at least one booster dose of the Covid vaccine.

However, the proportion worldwide is as high as one third, the Committee said. “The current challenges of inequality can be significantly mitigated by sharing access to intellectual property rights” on all anti-coronavirus technologies, it said.

However, Switzerland and other countries had agreed at the World Trade Organization (WTO) to a provisional lifting of patents on vaccines for five years, but only after a two-year pandemic. By then, the populations of these countries had largely been immunised with at least one booster dose. Production was sufficient to meet demand.

Difficult discussions at the WTO

Under pressure like others for many months, Berne had always defended the protection of innovation by pharmaceutical companies. It had also taken the view that lifting patents would not make it possible to manufacture an additional dose of vaccine. In its view, the problem lay more in the infrastructure for distributing vaccines in developing countries.

The UN Committee and a number of governments would like to see this issue included in the next treaty on pandemics to be discussed at the WHO. Many western countries, including Switzerland, reject this scenario. In their view, intellectual property should be discussed at the WTO.

In the agreement reached at the WTO ministerial meeting in June 2022, the countries undertook to continue negotiations to extend the lifting of patents to other technologies to combat the coronavirus, particularly medicines and tests.

However, the six-month deadline could not be met, and the negotiations remain deadlocked. The United States has launched an investigation to find out more about the challenges associated with this extremely difficult issue.

Call for a strict mechanism

Pending the results, which are not expected before October, no progress can be made. This issue will be one of those on the agenda at the next WTO ministerial meeting next February in Abu Dhabi.

The CERD’s decision was supported by the UN Special Rapporteur on Racism and Racial Discrimination. These independent experts are calling on governments to place human rights concerns at the heart of their policy on the coronavirus.

They want a stricter mechanism for lifting patents in the event of a health crisis. And the CERD is asking them to help developing countries achieve the minimum medical conditions expected to deal with international health emergencies.

Edit: Typo in title

  • PupBiru@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    1 year ago

    i mean, they did stop the pandemic so… yknow… i’d say lower your expectations? they were never going to be 100% for life afaik; that’s just not how these viruses work

    • Quereller@lemmy.one
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      I think the vaccination was net benefit for me and for society. I probably got less severe disease and not everyone was at the hospital at the same time. However, the pandemic stopped (to be a problem) just because everyone was at least once infected with SARS-COV-2.

      • PupBiru@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        that is provably untrue… i’m from australia, so we took a markedly different strategy to the US to the pandemic as i’m sure you’re aware… the pandemic stopped here very definitively because of vaccination: the majority of people did not get COVID until well after the vaccine was given to most of the population and it was showing effectiveness

        and since vaccination, yes many people have caught COVID but very few people have had severe cases