|
KMID : 1172020210220020075
|
|
Journal of Korean Bioethics Association
2021 Volume.22 No. 2 p.75 ~ p.106
|
|
|
An Ethical Review of the Patent Waiver Controversy Due to COVID-19 Pandemic: Focusing on Levinas' Ethics of Responsibility
|
|
Jin Young-Jin
|
|
|
Abstract
|
|
|
|
This study started with a question of why it is difficult for the international community, which has called for solidarity as the most important moral value for overcoming the COVID-19 pandemic, to reach a consensus on intellectual property-related issues. Although vaccines have been developed, some countries are currently facing a serious public health crisis due to an imbalance between supply and demand of the vaccine. Therefore, the emergence of the phenomenon of vaccine nationalism is ethically reprehensible. To solve this problem, it is important not only to distribute the vaccine fairly but also to increase the supply of the vaccine as quickly as possible. A proposal to waive Covid-19 vaccine patent right has been raised that anyone could produce vaccines, however some developed countries are opposing this proposal. The core reason for their objection is that they cannot give up the technological innovation and economic benefits that can be expected from the patents. Here, we see a conflict between the right to patent and the right to life. It is desirable to discuss the suspension of COVID-19 vaccine patent rights based on Levinas' ethics of responsibility in the current existential crisis. This is because the positions between developed countries and vulnerable countries are not equal and asymmetrical, and infectious diseases can be stopped and prevented from spreading when we care for each other and are in solidarity. In addition, based on the vaccine patent debates and experiences of COVID-19 crisis, it is necessary to reconsider the impact of patents on drug accessibility from an ethical point of view, and further try to shift the paradigm of patent system.
|
|
|
KEYWORD
|
|
|
COVID-19, Patent Waiver, Solidarity, Responsibility, Ethics
|
|
|
FullTexts / Linksout information
|
|
|
|
|
|
Listed journal information
|
|
|
|