By Rachel Thrasher The COVID-19 pandemic has brought the existing challenges of equitable access to affordable medicines into sharp relief. With almost 3 million deaths globally, every country in the world is dealing with an unprecedented disease burden on the health care system, the economic impacts of mandated public and private sector shut-downs and increasingly […]
The world was unprepared for COVID-19, despite other recent coronavirus outbreaks and despite multiple warnings from the World Health Organization (WHO) and others. Although there was an initial sharing of research among scientists and an unleashing of significant public, charitable and private funding to develop, test and expand manufacturing capacity of new COVID-19-related medicines, vaccines […]
Since ascending to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, China has focused extensively on increasing protection for intellectual property rights (IPRs). Additionally, in 2019, China signed a Phase One trade agreement with the United States to accelerate that process even more. These heightened intellectual property rules are beyond what is required by the WTO’s […]
On April 22nd, 2021, members of the Boston University Global Development Policy Center’s Working Group on Trade and Access to Medicines called upon United States Trade Representative, Katherine Tai and the European Union Trade Commissioner, Valdis Dombrovskis with an urgent request to extend the transition period for Least Developed Countries (LDCs) under Article 66.1 of […]
All of the US Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) signed in the past 20 years have required trading partners to enact stronger intellectual property (IP) laws than those stipulated by the World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement), provisions commonly referred to as “TRIPS-Plus.” This includes trade agreements made […]
By Michael Palmedo All United States Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) signed in the past 20 years have required trading partners to enact intellectual property (IP) laws that are stronger than those required by the World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). In pharmaceutical markets, these “TRIPS-Plus” rules enhance the […]
By Rachel Thrasher and Özlem Ömer As a recent policy brief by the Boston University Global Development Policy Center shows, more must be done to ensure a rapid, equitable and global rollout of COVID-19 vaccines. Vaccine rollout is underway in every region of the world. 500 million doses have been given worldwide, with almost 100 […]
By Luma Ramos Amid the worst global recession since World War II, the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) 2021 Spring Meetings debated the importance of incorporating green policies into the economic recovery. In her opening speech, the Fund’s Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva noted that the IMF has a strategic role to play in mitigating climate change, […]
By Sarah Sklar While China’s economic performance has been remarkable since reform and opening in the late 1970s, real GDP growth slowed down in the aftermath of the global financial crisis and never recovered its pace. In a recent presentation as part of the Spring 2021 Global China Research Colloquium, Marialuz Moreno Badia, Deputy Chief […]
The United States has free trade agreements (FTAs) with about 20 countries, including Mexico, Canada, Colombia, South Korea, Morocco and others. Negotiations for a new US FTA with Kenya are currently underway, with talks beginning in July 2020 and scheduled to conclude by the end of 2021. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, most of the […]