The WTO was created to be a tool of the petty politics the global North plays to favour its interests. We’ve depicted this dynamic before, first with an image of the puppeteer and his puppet and now, with the clown purposely dropping the global South ball.
The WTO’s most recent moves on a trade response to the pandemic are more of the same: Shady moves, misleading and petty politics to promote the WTO as a relevant geopolitical piece of the puzzle and serve its masters’ protectionist practices.
The language included by the WTO Director-General herself in the new TRIPS waiver text aims to exclude China from it, which only favours the geopolitical interests of the global North while neglecting the need for diversifying supply. Besides using language that still leaves the world with an unworkable, useless proposal.
The consequences? More variants, more hospital admissions, more economic fallout, and more lives lost—detrimental effects that hit especially hard on the global South.
#Fem4PeoplesVaccine #EndCOVIDMonopolies
