Please register for the webinar here

Abstract

As the global community struggles to reset the society and the economy by putting behind the scourge of COVID-19, it is amply clear that the only effective way of realising this objective is by ensuring affordable vaccines for every citizen. However, access to affordable vaccines has emerged as a major challenge for two reasons. First, several developed countries have stocked vaccines well in excess of their requirements, thus indulging in a practice that can best be described as "vaccine nationalism". Secondly, even in the midst of one of the worst pandemics affecting the humankind, several companies are exercising their market power, by leveraging, among others, their intellectual property rights (IPRs) over the vaccines. Vaccine diplomacy is also the flavour of the day. Even as developed countries flounder in dealing with COVID 19, countries like China and India, who have seemingly handled the situation better, have stepped in to fill the breach. They are going out of their way to provide developing countries the COVID vaccine, often on a grant basis and building up a stock of diplomatic goodwill.

In the World Trade Organization (WTO), India has taken an important initiative, along with South Africa, to ensure that the encumbrances of IPRs do not affect the supplies of COVID-related vaccines, medicines, and other medical products. The two countries had tabled a proposal in October 2020, seeking a temporary waiver from the implementation and enforcement of four major forms of IPRs. Currently, this proposal has the explicit or tacit support of nearly two thirds of the membership of the WTO. These issues will be discussed at length during the webinar.

About the Speakers

Biswajit Dhar is Professor, Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, India. Before this he was heading the Research and Information System for Developing Countries in New Delhi, India as the Director General for five years. Prior to this post he was the Professor and Head of the Centre for WTO Studies in the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, New Delhi. He has been involved in trade policy issues, particularly in the context of the multilateral trading system, both as a researcher and a policy adviser to the Government of India. He has been a member of the Indian delegation to the Ministerial Conferences of the World Trade Organization. He has also served on expert panels set up by the Ministry of Statistics, Department of Chemicals and Fertilizers and Ministry of Environment and Forests. Dr. Dhar has been working extensively with a number of intergovernmental organizations including UNDP, UNESCAP, FAO, and UNCTAD, taking up issues related to the functioning of the global trading system. He authored and co-authored numerous texts on various issues related to trade and development.

Manoj Joshi is a Distinguished Fellow at the ORF. He has been a journalist specialising on national and international politics and is a commentator and columnist on these issues. As a reporter, he has written extensively on issues relating to Siachen, Pakistan, China, Sri Lanka and terrorism in Kashmir and Punjab. He was most recently a member of the Task Force on National Security chaired by Mr Naresh Chandra to propose reforms in the security apparatus of the country. He has been the political editor of The Times of India, Editor (Views) Hindustan Times, Defence Editor of India Today, National Affairs Editor of Mail Today, the Washington Correspondent of The Financial Express and a Special Correspondent of The Hindu in his three decade long career as a journalist. Before that he was an Academic Fellow of the American Studies Research Centre, Hyderabad. He has been a member of the National Security Council's Advisory Board and is a graduate from St Stephen's College, Delhi University and a Ph.D. from the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University. He has been a Visiting Professor at the SIS, JNU, as well as a Visiting Fellow at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University.

About the Chair

Rama V. Baru is Professor at the Centre of Social Medicine and Community Health, Jawaharlal Nehru University, and an Honorary Fellow, Institute of Chinese Studies, Delhi, India. She is also an Honorary Professor at the India Studies Centre, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China. Her major areas of research interest include commercialisation of health services, infectious diseases, comparative health systems and health inequalities. She has several books and publications to her name.