On 16 February 2024, the Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has participated in the Virtual Expert Workshop on Key Challenges and New Developments in Ensuring Access to Medicines, Vaccines, and other Health Products. The expert workshop was convened by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).

Rossella De Falco, Programme Officer on the Right to Health, submitted an oral intervention including recommendations based on ongoing work of GI-ESCR on knowledge commons and access to medicines.

To address global inequalities in accessing vaccines as well as other medicines, there is a need for transformative policy solutions, like public options for pharmaceuticals and support for knowledge commons. Such policy solutions must be grounded in international human rights law, including the rights to science and to health.” Rossella De Falco, Programme Officer on the Right to Health at GI-ESCR.

GI-ESCR’s research shows how innovative policies can realise the right to health and to deliver universal healthcare and access to medicines. For instance, during COVID-19, collaborative platforms such as Nextstrain and Gisaid made it possible to track the spread of genetic mutations, while the European Commission rapidly established a COVID-19 data portal in April 2020 to share research data on the disease.

Likewise, publicly owned pharmaceutical institutions in several countries around the world, can also manufacture, distribute, and deliver medicines. GI-ESCR research focuses on examples  ranging from Sweden to Brazil.

At the same time, GI-ESCR recalled States’ obligations to use TRIPS Flexibilities, including compulsory licensing, waiver, and parallel imports, to protect human rights and public health. GI-ESCR also urged States to strongly monitor and regulate pharmaceutical companies, especially as regards pricing of new pharmaceutical products and to ensure that public funding to private pharmaceutical companies contributes to public health goals and human rights’ obligations.

Participation in this virtual expert meeting is part of GI-ESCR’s broader effort to realise universal access to medicines, including at EU level through the organisation and participation in the upcoming conference Public Pharma for Europe in Brussels.