COVID-19 from the lens of Global International Relations (2022) (original) (raw)
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COVID-19 from the lens of Global International Relations
OASIS, 2022
Although the initiation of COVID-19 vaccination brought hope, IFM forecasts that the main fault line to global recovery is access to vaccines, an argument that reinforces the idea that COVID-19 is a syndemic and not a pandemic. This article argues that from the lens of Global International Relations three elements impact vaccine access and affordability: human security, global governance, and International Law. First, the health emergency requires rethinking security considering the multiple risks and threats centred on the human being. Second, inefficiency of global governance led to the success of vaccine diplomacy over Covax Facility, as well as India and South Africa’s long and uncertain struggle for a waiver in the World Trade Organisation. Finally, although Law plays an essential role in building resilience in situations of vulnerability, the inter-national legal system lacks treaties that rule pandemics or establish limits to intellectual property if the immunity of herd requires it.
Covid-19 Vaccine and International Relations New frontiers of vaccine diplomacy
Southeast Asia: A Multidisciplinary Journal, 2021
The initial policy of the countries that developed vaccines has been to lock the vaccine by patent. This has been due to the fact that domestic demand for vaccine was mounting. Since only a few countries could invest in it, manufacturing and export remained at the behest of those few resulting in deep inequity in the global rollout. Pandemics are global health crises. Hence, calls for the patent waiver for the COVID-19 vaccine are growing to access the vaccine. The vaccine and its production, marketing and distribution have been politicized driven by the hegemonic aspiration. Both manufacturing and import-dependent countries are racing to win the diplomatic battle: the former has to win to gain hegemony and the latter to get the vaccine. Hence, the vaccine distribution has been marked with deep discrimination, and as a result, the migrant community is less likely to get their vaccine on time. This article engages in the decades-long debate over intellectual property rights and patenting life-saving vaccines. We argue that exemption of COVID-19 vaccines from intellectual property rights would improve global access and equity.
Flaws of Global Health Governance as Illustrated by the COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution
Revista Culturas Jurídicas
Global cooperation during times of crisis is necessary to procure effective responses and to uphold the universal human right to health. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted weaknesses within global health governance, particularly relating to the COVAX program and vaccine distributions. This paper sets out to describe and critically analyze the flaws within these frameworks. A narrative literature review was conducted to gather a widespread of information about weaknesses of the COVAX program. Additionally, the contrasting realities within Brazil and Canada were described to illustrate the differences between the two nations. The primary themes extracted from literature included a shift to multilateralism, nationalism, and protectionism. Furthermore, fragmentation within international institutional frameworks and their power distribution created grey-areas and impeded effective responses. This paper suggests measures to reinforce the authority of global health governance, ...
COVID-19 Pandemic, the World Health Organization, and Global Health Policy
Social Science Research Network, 2021
The emergence and quick spread of the COVID-19 pandemic has shifted the focus and dynamics of the debates about global health, international law, and policy. This shift has overshadowed many of the other controversies in the international sphere. It has also highlighted the tensions that often exist in international affairs—especially in understanding the place and purpose of international institutions, vis-à-vis states, in the general schema of public international law. Central to the international response to the current pandemic is the World Health Organization (WHO)—a treaty-based organization charged with the overarching mandate of ensuring “the highest possible level of health” for all people. Interestingly, the WHO has also become entangled in a foreign policy spat between China and the United States of America. This work explores the public international law aspects of the WHO and why we should focus on its primary policy mandate and avoid unduly heaving the institution into perennial strategic policy games of states. It argues against turning such an illustrious institution, charged with a peculiar mandate, into an arena of zero-sum competitions amongst states. The hope is that this paper will provide crucial insights and assist legal and policy experts in understanding the organization, insulating it from unnecessary strategic games of powerful states, and ensuring the continued and effective delivery of global health policy2 through the WHO.
Health Promotion Perspectives
Background: The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has shown a crystal-clear warning that nobody will be safe until everybody is safe against the pandemic. However, how everyone is safe when the pandemic’s fat tail risks have broken every nerve of the global economy and healthcare facilities, including vaccine equity. Vaccine inequity has become one of the critical factors for millions of new infections and deaths during this pandemic. Against the backdrop of exponentially growing infected cases of COVID-19 along with vaccine in-equity, this paper will examine how multilateralism could play its role in mitigating vaccine equity through Global Health Diplomacy (GHD). Second, given the most affected developing countries’ lack of participation in multilateralism, could GHD be left as an option in the worst-case scenario?. Methods: In this narrative review, a literature search was conducted in all the popular databases, such as Scopus, Web of Science, PubMed and Google search engines for the key...
A review of health security and vaccine diplomacy during COVID-19 pandemic
International Journal of Public Health Science (IJPHS), 2022
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic raises several public health concerns that impact various aspects of people's lives. The severity and spread of infection are extremely rapid, spreading out of control globally. Aside from illness and death, it presents a slew of long-term health concerns among the population. Therefore, the pandemic has manifested into a major health security issue, impacting the population globally. Health securitization refers to recognizing the presence of an existential health threat, and authorities can devote resources to manage the risks. Although vaccinations are required for long-term management of this disease, the vaccination procedure is often plagued by access, efficacy, and vaccine prioritization issues. By employing an interpretative social science approach, the article argues that the COVID-19 pandemic needs to be securitized at the state and international levels, and vaccines as public-good should be accessible to everyone without discrimination or prioritization and diplomatic interests. The study found, firstly, that many countries have adopted health securitization and coordinated efforts by international agencies. Secondly, vaccine hoarding by richer countries has created a disparity in the rate and coverage of vaccination in other regions. Thirdly, vaccine donation by richer countries is only a temporary solution. A robust vaccine allocation mechanism is needed for more comprehensive and equitable vaccination coverage.
COVID-19 vaccine apartheid and the failure of global cooperation
British Journal of Politics and International Relations, vol. 25, no. 3, pp. 535-554, 2023
The equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines is one of the most important tests of global cooperation that the world has faced in recent decades. Collectively, global leaders failed that crucible abysmally, creating a 'vaccine apartheid' that divided the world according to income into countries with widespread access and those without. Why, given that leaders were fully aware of the risks and injustice of vaccine inequity, did governments of wealthy countries hoard doses, impede the expansion of vaccine manufacturing and otherwise prevent equitable access to vaccines? We argue that their decisions to act selfishly are best explained by governments' accountability to domestic constituencies, their lack of leadership and commitment to multilateralism and their adoption of short-term perspectives, as well as their unwillingness to curb the influence of profitoriented global pharmaceutical companies and, to a certain extent, of an additional private actor, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Global public health security and justice for vaccines and therapeutics in the COVID-19 pandemic
EClinicalMedicine, 2021
Commission for COVID-19 task force is shaping recommendations to achieve vaccine and therapeutics access, justice, and equity. This includes ensuring safety and effectiveness harmonized through robust systems of global pharmacovigilance and surveillance. Global production requires expanding support for development, manufacture, testing, and distribution of vaccines and therapeutics to low-and middle-income countries (LMICs). Global intellectual property rules must not stand in the way of research, production, technology transfer, or equitable access to essential health tools, and in context of pandemics to achieve increased manufacturing without discouraging innovation. Global governance around product quality requires channelling widely distributed vaccines through WHO prequalification (PQ)/emergency use listing (EUL) mechanisms and greater use of national regulatory authorities. A World Health Assembly (WHA) resolution would facilitate improvements and consistency in quality control and assurances. Global health systems require implementing steps to strengthen national systems for controlling COVID-19 and for influenza vaccinations for adults including pregnant and lactating women. A collaborative research network should strive to establish open access databases for bioinformatic analyses, together with programs directed at human capacity utilization and strengthening. Combating anti-science recognizes the urgency for countermeasures to