It said that the voluntary pooling of patents in response to the pandemic needed to be ‘be narrowly tailored in scope and duration to the medical needs of the current crisis’, raising uncertainty about how the US intends to respond if it is the first nation with a viable vaccine.
Apart from spelling out the public health issues the Caribbean has had to address, the need to recognise vulnerability when it comes to eligibility for development assistance, and recognising Cuba’s ‘palpable’ and ‘unswerving assistance’ to the region, Barbados’ Prime Minister shone a light on the crisis in global governance that the pandemic has highlighted.
Last month Roberto Azevêdo, its Brazilian born head resigned early and there is a growing body of opinion that if the institution is to survive in any meaningful way his successor will need somehow to bridge the divide between China and the US and reform the organisation so that it is better designed for a different world.
How achievable this might be given the WTO’s consensus-based decision-making approach, a US President who sees trade as bilateral and Manichean, and China’s professed multilateralism and global role in driving trade and investment, is open to question.
However, if such exceptionalism proves incorrect, the answer comes from China, Cuba or elsewhere, and is offered at cost or free to the world, and the US Administration objects, it will struggle to justify its unilateralism or objections to global interdependence.
