A short thread for those who want to understand just why twitter (well, the trade part of it) is going crazy surrounding an "IP waiver" for covid vaccines (thread)

In an age long past intellectual property - let's limit ourselves to patents - were were not part of world trade law. The rules of international IP were negotiated in the World Intellectual Property Organization alone.

Now the IP treaties did not really harmonize IP law. They made it a bit simpler to get protection in several countries. And the world was - oversimplifying a LOT here - largely split: the Global North protected IP, the Global South did not to such an extent. Why?

For this you have to know that to this day patents are a national thing. A US patent is ONLY valid in the US. The Global South basically said: if we grant patents, we will grant them to YOUR companies. It's a wealth transfer from South to North. Why should we do that?

Particularly the US felt this was unfair. They felt that they financed new developments and others ripped them of. And in the late 80s the US took action - in the trade area and against Brazil for a lack of pharma patent protection.

The story ended with IP protection being quasi-harmonized in the TRIPS Agreement as part of the World Trade Organization. And ever since then the US was reliably on the side of big pharma when it come to IP.

And yes - the EU, the UK and Japan were, too. But the US was in the lead. Over the years the intellectual emphasis changed. Cutting edge profs like @marklemley took a more nuanced, critical position of IP. But for a long time that remained somewhat academic.

In the global arena HIV patents were the backdrop of the first fight. They saw young student activists like @akapczynski rise to superstars of critical IP & health thinking. But they did not change the US stance.

There was a short moment where the US blinked: the anthrax scare. The US threatened a compulsory license for the one available medicine to drive down prices. But if I remember correctly it then stated that did not really happen.

So many of us dismissed rumors that USTR was thinking about the TRIPS waiver. "Yeah sure". We thought. We were wrong, as @USTradeRep showed today. And yes. Maybe this is a negotiation stance to exert pressure for more voluntary action. But even that is a sea change.

At this point I do, of course, have to point out: if you want to read more about this debate... well there's this https://global.oup.com/academic/product/human-rights-and-the-wto-9780199552177?cc=us&lang=en&

... I know what you're thinking: SHORT?
But heck. I'm not just an academic but also German. You say it's a long thread, for me this is barely the beginning of a sentence...