“Developed countries were hoarding vaccines and using the power of intellectual property law as a tool to ensure that they would continue to offer access to their own,” says Faith Majekolagbe of the University of Alberta’s Faculty of Law.

In a recent paper that contributes to the debate, published in the Australian Journal of Human Rights, Majekolagbe argues that international human rights law needs stronger teeth in the face of well-established protections for intellectual property. Otherwise, nations without timely access to a vaccine will once again suffer disproportionate harm.

We also now know that allowing a virus to run rampant in any population is short-sighted, giving it a better chance of mutating and endangering us all.

“The pandemic precipitated and exacerbated an existing but largely unresolved tension between the role of intellectual property protection in incentivizing innovation and the need to facilitate access to innovative goods on equitable and affordable terms,” write Majekolagbe and her co-author, Tolulope Anthony Adekola of the University of Queensland.