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Tournament: NA | Round: 1 | Opponent: NA | Judge: NA Hi, I'm Jina (she/her). You can contact me via email: jinakang23@marlborough.org
10/11/21
NovDec - Healthcare Workers CP
Tournament: Damus Hollywood | Round: 3 | Opponent: William Wei | Judge: Sohum Tiwary 1 Interpretation: workers is a generic bare plural. The aff may not defend that a just government ought to recognize the unconditional right of a specific type of workers to strike. Nebel 19 Jake Nebel Jake Nebel is an assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Southern California and executive director of Victory Briefs. , 8-12-2019, "Genericity on the Standardized Tests Resolution," Briefly, https://www.vbriefly.com/2019/08/12/genericity-on-the-standardized-tests-resolution/ SM Both distinctions are important. Generic resolutions can’t be affirmed by specifying particular instances. But, since generics tolerate exceptions, plan-inclusive counterplans (PICs) do not negate generic resolutions. Bare plurals are typically used to express generic generalizations. But there are two important things to keep in mind. First, generic generalizations are also often expressed via other means (e.g., definite singulars, indefinite singulars, and bare singulars). Second, and more importantly for present purposes, bare plurals can also be used to express existential generalizations. For example, “Birds are singing outside my window” is true just in case there are some birds singing outside my window; it doesn’t require birds in general to be singing outside my window. So, what about “colleges and universities,” “standardized tests,” and “undergraduate admissions decisions”? Are they generic or existential bare plurals? On other topics I have taken great pains to point out that their bare plurals are generic—because, well, they are. On this topic, though, I think the answer is a bit more nuanced. Let’s see why. 1.1 “Colleges and Universities” “Colleges and universities” is a generic bare plural. I don’t think this claim should require any argument, when you think about it, but here are a few reasons. First, ask yourself, honestly, whether the following speech sounds good to you: “Eight colleges and universities—namely, those in the Ivy League—ought not consider standardized tests in undergraduate admissions decisions. Maybe other colleges and universities ought to consider them, but not the Ivies. Therefore, in the United States, colleges and universities ought not consider standardized tests in undergraduate admissions decisions.” That is obviously not a valid argument: the conclusion does not follow. Anyone who sincerely believes that it is valid argument is, to be charitable, deeply confused. But the inference above would be good if “colleges and universities” in the resolution were existential. By way of contrast: “Eight birds are singing outside my window. Maybe lots of birds aren’t singing outside my window, but eight birds are. Therefore, birds are singing outside my window.” Since the bare plural “birds” in the conclusion gets an existential reading, the conclusion follows from the premise that eight birds are singing outside my window: “eight” entails “some.” If the resolution were existential with respect to “colleges and universities,” then the Ivy League argument above would be a valid inference. Since it’s not a valid inference, “colleges and universities” must be a generic bare plural. Second, “colleges and universities” fails the upward-entailment test for existential uses of bare plurals. Consider the sentence, “Lima beans are on my plate.” This sentence expresses an existential statement that is true just in case there are some lima beans on my plate. One test of this is that it entails the more general sentence, “Beans are on my plate.” Now consider the sentence, “Colleges and universities ought not consider the SAT.” (To isolate “colleges and universities,” I’ve eliminated the other bare plurals in the resolution; it cannot plausibly be generic in the isolated case but existential in the resolution.) This sentence does not entail the more general statement that educational institutions ought not consider the SAT. This shows that “colleges and universities” is generic, because it fails the upward-entailment test for existential bare plurals. Third, “colleges and universities” fails the adverb of quantification test for existential bare plurals. Consider the sentence, “Dogs are barking outside my window.” This sentence expresses an existential statement that is true just in case there are some dogs barking outside my window. One test of this appeals to the drastic change of meaning caused by inserting any adverb of quantification (e.g., always, sometimes, generally, often, seldom, never, ever). You cannot add any such adverb into the sentence without drastically changing its meaning. To apply this test to the resolution, let’s again isolate the bare plural subject: “Colleges and universities ought not consider the SAT.” Adding generally (“Colleges and universities generally ought not consider the SAT”) or ever (“Colleges and universities ought not ever consider the SAT”) result in comparatively minor changes of meaning. (Note that this test doesn’t require there to be no change of meaning and doesn’t have to work for every adverb of quantification.) This strongly suggests what we already know: that “colleges and universities” is generic rather than existential in the resolution. Fourth, it is extremely unlikely that the topic committee would have written the resolution with the existential interpretation of “colleges and universities” in mind. If they intended the existential interpretation, they would have added explicit existential quantifiers like “some.” No such addition would be necessary or expected for the generic interpretation since generics lack explicit quantifiers by default. The topic committee’s likely intentions are not decisive, but they strongly suggest that the generic interpretation is correct, since it’s prima facie unlikely that a committee charged with writing a sentence to be debated would be so badly mistaken about what their sentence means (which they would be if they intended the existential interpretation). The committee, moreover, does not write resolutions for the 0.1 percent of debaters who debate on the national circuit; they write resolutions, at least in large part, to be debated by the vast majority of students on the vast majority of circuits, who would take the resolution to be (pretty obviously, I’d imagine) generic with respect to “colleges and universities,” given its face-value meaning and standard expectations about what LD resolutions tend to mean.
It applies to workers:
Upward entailment test – spec fails the upward entailment test because saying that a just government ought to recognize the right of one type of workers to strike does not entail that all nations ought to recognize the right of all workers to strike 2. Adverb test – adding “usually” to the res doesn’t substantially change its meaning
Vote neg:
Semantics outweigh: it’s the only stasis point we know before the round so it controls the internal link to engagement – there’s no way to use ground if debaters aren’t prepared to defend it
2. Limits – there are countless affs accounting for thousands of different professions and any combination thereof– unlimited topics incentivize obscure affs that negs won’t have prep on – limits are key to reciprocal prep burden – potential abuse doesn’t justify foregoing the topic and 1AR theory checks PICs
3. TVA solves – read as an advantage to whole rez
Drop the debater to preserve fairness and education – use competing interps – reasonability invites arbitrary judge intervention and a race to the bottom of questionable argumentation
2 Plan Text: A just government ought to recognize the right of healthcare workers to strike except for healthcare workers responding to pandemics. Nurse strikes devastate hospitals Wright 10 Sarah H. Wright July 2010 "Evidence on the Effects of Nurses' Strikes" https://www.nber.org/digest/jul10/evidence-effects-nurses-strikes (Researcher at National Bureau of Economic Research) U.S. hospitals were excluded from collective bargaining laws for three decades longer than other sectors because of fears that strikes by nurses might imperil patients' health. Today, while unionization has been declining in general, it is growing rapidly in hospitals, with the number of unionized workers rising from 679,000 in 1990 to nearly one million in 2008. In Do Strikes Kill? Evidence from New York State (NBER Working Paper No. 15855), co-authors Jonathan Gruber and Samuel Kleiner carefully examine the effects of nursing strikes on patient care and outcomes. The researchers match data on nurses' strikes in New York State from 1984 to 2004 to data on hospital discharges, including information on treatment intensity, patient mortality, and hospital readmission. They conclude that nurses' strikes were costly to hospital patients: in-hospital mortality increased by 19.4 percent and hospital readmissions increased by 6.5 percent for patients admitted during a strike. Among their sample of 38,228 such patients, an estimated 138 more individuals died than would have without a strike, and 344 more patients were readmitted to the hospital than if there had been no strike. "Hospitals functioning during nurses' strikes do so at a lower quality of patient care," they write. Still, at hospitals experiencing strikes, the measures of treatment intensity -- that is, the length of hospital stay and the number of procedures performed during the patient's stay -- show no significant differences between striking and non-striking periods. Patients appear to receive the same intensity of care during union work stoppages as during normal hospital operations. Thus, the poor outcomes associated with strikes suggest that they might reduce hospital productivity. These poor health outcomes increased for both emergency and non-emergency hospital patients, even as admissions of both groups decreased by about 28 percent at hospitals with strikes. The poor health outcomes were not apparent either before or after the strike in the striking hospitals, suggesting that they are attributable to the strike itself. And, the poor health outcomes do not appear to do be due to different types of patients being admitted during strike periods, because patients admitted during a strike are very similar to those admitted during other periods. Hiring replacement workers apparently does not help: hospitals that hired replacement workers performed no better during strikes than those that did not hire substitute employees. In each case, patients with conditions that required intensive nursing were more likely to fare worse in the presence of nurses' strikes. Hospitals are the critical internal link for pandemic preparedness. Al Thobaity 20, Abdullelah, and Farhan Alshammari. "Nurses on the frontline against the COVID-19 pandemic: an Integrative review." Dubai Medical Journal 3.3 (2020): 87-92. (Associate Professor of Nursing at Taif University) The majority of infected or symptomatic people seek medical treatment in medical facilities, particularly hospitals, as a high number of cases, especially those in critical condition, will have an impact on hospitals 4. The concept of hospital resilience in disaster situations is defined as the ability to recover from the damage caused by huge disturbances quickly 2. The resilience of hospitals to pandemic cases depends on the preparedness of the institutions, and not all hospitals have the same resilience. A lower resilience will affect the sustainability of the health services. This also affects healthcare providers such as doctors, nurses, and allied health professionals 5, 6. Despite the impact on healthcare providers, excellent management of a pandemic depends on the level of preparedness of healthcare providers, including nurses. This means that if it was impossible to be ready before a crisis or disaster, responsible people will do all but the impossible to save lives.
Healthcare workers are key to saving millions of lives during COVID-19 through treatment and administering vaccines Garrett Ilg, 21 - ("Celebrating Healthcare Workers and the Technology that Empowers Them," Oracle APAC, 4-7-2021, https://www.oracle.com/apac/news/announcement/blog/celebrating-healthcare-workers-technology-2021-04-05.html?source=:so:ch:or:awr::::)/AK As we observe the World Health Organization’s World Health Day on April 7, I want to celebrate the people and institutions on the front lines of healthcare worldwide—especially amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Their steely dedication and relentless innovation have produced multiple, highly effective coronavirus vaccines in record time. They’ve administered close to 460 million doses of those vaccines, according to the WHO, saving countless millions of lives. And they’ve treated a large subset of about 125 million confirmed cases, often at great personal risk and with insufficient resources. Oracle’s National Electronic Health Records Database and the Oracle Public Health Management System, built by a global team that worked round the clock, in partnership with government and non-government institutions, played a critical role in that Herculean effort. In addition to electronically screening hundreds of thousands of volunteers for COVID-19 clinical trials, the system has collected millions of daily health updates from patients and healthcare providers. It was designed from the ground up to scale to the populations of entire nations as COVID-19 vaccines become more widely available. New Pandemics are deadlier and faster are coming – COVID is just the beginning Future pandemics cause extinction Eleftherios P. Diamandis 21 (works for the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto, Canada; Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto, Canada; Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada. “The Mother of All Battles: Viruses vs. Humans. Can Humans Avoid Extinction in 50-100 Years? 4/13/21 https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202104.0397/v1 The recent SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, which is causing COVID 19 disease, has taught us unexpected lessons about the dangers of human extinction through highly contagious and lethal diseases. As the COVID 19 pandemic is now being controlled by various isolation measures, therapeutics and vaccines, it became clear that our current lifestyle and societal functions may not be sustainable in the long term. We now have to start thinking and planning on how to face the next dangerous pandemic, not just overcoming the one that is upon us now. Is there any evidence that even worse pandemics could strike us in the near future and threaten the existence of the human race? The answer is unequivocally yes. It is not necessary to get infected by viruses of bats, pangolins and other exotic animals that live in remote forests in order to be in danger. Creditable scientific evidence indicates that the human gut microbiota harbor billions of viruses which are capable of affecting the function of vital human organs such as the immune system, lung, brain, liver, kidney, heart etc. It is possible that the development of pathogenic variants in the gut can lead to contagious viruses which can cause pandemics, leading to destruction of vital organs, causing death or various debilitating diseases such as blindness, respiratory, liver, heart and kidney failures. These diseases could result n the complete shutdown of our civilization and probably the extinction of human race. In this essay, I will first provide a few independent pieces of scientific facts and then combine this information to come up with some (but certainly not all) hypothetical scenarios that could cause human race misery, even extinction. I hope that these scary scenarios will trigger preventative measures that could reverse or delay the projected adverse outcomes. 3 The aff’s refusal to work is not a refusal of work – their endorsement of striking reinforces the belief that withholding labor puts people in a position of power. This reduces humans to labor capital, which causes work-dependency and inhibits alternatives. Hoffmann, 20 (Maja, "Resolving the ‘jobs-environment-dilemma’? The case for critiques of work in sustainability research. Taylor and Francis, 4-1-2020, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23251042.2020.1790718)//usc-br/ The societal dependence on work If work is associated with environmental pressures in at least four different ways, why do we have to maintain it at constant or increased levels? We hold that in industrial society four distinct levels of structural and cultural dependency on work may be discerned. These are to be understood as broad analytical categories which in reality comprise and cross individual and structural levels in various ways, and are all interdependent. Personal dependence. A first aspect is individual or personal dependence on work: Work as regular, gainful employment constitutes one of the central social relations in modern ‘work society’ and is a central point of reference in people’s lives. As a principal source of income, waged work fulfils the existential function of providing livelihoods and social security. It is constructed to secure basic social rights, social integration, recognition, status, and personal identity (Frayne 2015b; Weeks 2011). This is probably why ‘social’ is so often equated with ‘work’. State dependence. Secondly, dependence on work pertains to the modern welfare state: the revenues and economic growth generated through work contribute substantially to the financing of social security systems. Affording welfare is therefore a main argument for creating jobs. Wage labour is thus a dominating tool for redistribution; through wages, taxes on wages and on the consumption that production generates, almost all distribution takes place. Hence, what the job is, and what is being produced, is of secondary importance (Paulsen 2017). Work is moreover a convenient instrument of control that structures and disciplines society, and ‘renders populations at once productive and governable’ (Weeks 2011, 54; Gorz 1982; Lafargue 2014 1883). Specifically, the dominant neoliberal ideology, its condemnation of laziness and idealisation of ‘hardworking people’ has intensified the ‘moral fortification of work’. Accordingly, the neoliberal ‘workfare’ reforms have focused on job creation and the relentless activation for the labour market, effectively ‘enforcing work (…) as a key function of the state’ (Frayne 2015b, 16). Economic dependence. Thirdly, besides the economic imperative for individuals to ‘earn a living’ and pay off debt, modern economies are dependent on work in terms of an industrious labour force, long working hours for increasing economic output under the imperatives of capital accumulation, growth and competition, and rising incomes for increasing purchasing power and demand. Creating or preserving jobs constitutes the standard argument for economic growth. In turn, work as one basic factor of production creates growth. However, the relation between growth and employment is conditioned, amongst other factors, primarily by constantly pursued labour productivity: for employment to rise or stay stable, the economy must grow at a sufficiently high rate to exceed productivity gains, in order to offset job losses and avoid ‘jobless growth’. Moreover, faltering expansion triggers a spiral of recession which not only affects economic stability but results in societal crises as a whole (Jackson 2009; Paech 2012). However, besides being unsustainable and insatiable, growth is also increasingly unlikely to continue at the rates required for economic stability (Kallis et al. 2018; IMF 2015). The individual and structural economic dependence on work and economic growth therefore implies profound vulnerability as livelihoods and political stability are fatefully exposed to global competition and the capitalist imperative of capital accumulation, and constrained by ‘systemically relevant’ job and growth creating companies, industries and global (financial) markets (Gronemeyer 2012; Paech 2012). Cultural dependence. A fourth aspect concerns cultural dependence: The ‘work ethic’ is the specific morality described by Max Weber (19921905) as constitutive of modern industrial culture, 2 and determining for all its subjects as shared ‘common senses’ about how work is valued and understood. It means an ingrained moral compulsion to gainful work and timesaving, manifested in the common ideals of productivity, achievement and entrepreneurship, in the feeling of guilt when time is ‘wasted’, in personal identification with one’s ‘calling’, in observations of busyness, even burnout as a ‘badge of honour’ (Paulsen 2014), and in descriptions of a culture that has lost the ‘capacity to relax in the old, uninhibited ways’ (Thompson 1967, 91). Even for those who do not share such attitudes towards work, in a work-centred culture it is normal to (seek) work. It is so commonsensical that it seems impractical to question it, and it continues to be normalised through socialisation and schooling. Consequently, people become limited in their imagination of alternatives, the prospect of losing one’s job usually causes heartfelt fear (Standing 2011). For a work society that ‘does no longer know of those other higher and more meaningful activities for the sake of which this freedom would deserve to be won’, there can be nothing worse than the cessation of work (Hannah Arendt, cited in Gorz 1989, 7–8). The wage relation based on the commodity labour is, in other words, an essential functional feature of the industrial-capitalist system, and the exaltation of work remains its social ethic. For modern industrial society work is ‘both its chief means and its ultimate goal’ (Gorz 1989, 13; Weber 1992 1905; Weeks 2011); it is centred and structurally dependent on work, despite work’s environmentally adverse implications. This constellation constitutes the dilemma between work and the environment, and it is why we argue that work is absolutely central to present-day unsustainability and should accordingly be dealt with in sustainability research. Work necessitates material throughput and waste that destroys the environment, even when the jobs are ‘green’ Hoffmann, 20 (Maja, "Resolving the ‘jobs-environment-dilemma’? The case for critiques of work in sustainability research. Taylor and Francis, 4-1-2020, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23251042.2020.1790718)//usc-br/ An ecological critique of work What is the problem with modern-day work from an environmental perspective? A number of quantitative studies have researched the correlation of working hours and environmental impacts in terms of ecological footprint, carbon footprint, greenhouse gas emissions, and energy consumption, both on micro/household and on macro/cross-national levels, and for both ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ countries (Fitzgerald, Jorgenson, and Clark 2015; Hayden and Shandra 2009; Knight, Rosa, and Schor 2013; Nässén and Larsson 2015; Rosnick and Weisbrot 2007). Based on these findings, and going beyond them, we develop a qualitative classification of ecological impacts of work broadly (not working hours only), distinguishing four analytically distinct factors (Hoffmann 2017). Fundamentally, all productive activity is based on material and energy throughputs within wider ecological conditions, which necessarily involves interference with the ecosphere. The appropriation and exploitation of non-human animals, land, soil, water, biomass, raw materials, the atmosphere and all other elements of the biosphere always to some extent causes pollution, degradation, and destruction. Thus, work is inherently both productive and destructive. However, this biophysical basis alone need not make work unsustainable, and it has not always been so (Krausmann 2017). Contributing to its unsustainability is, firstly, the Scale factor: the greater the amount of work, the more ‘inputs’ are required and the more ‘outputs’ generated, which means more throughput of resources and energy, and resulting ecological impacts. In other words, the more work, the larger the size of the economy, the more demands on the biosphere (Hayden and Shandra 2009; Knight, Rosa, and Schor 2013). Obviously, there are qualitative differences between different types of work and their respective environmental impacts. Moreover, besides the evident and direct impacts, indirect impacts matter also. The tertiary/service sector is therefore not exempt from this reasoning (Hayden and Shandra 2009; Knight, Rosa, and Schor 2013), not only due to its own (often ‘embodied’) materiality and energy requirements, but also because it administrates and supports industrial production processes in global supply chains (Fitzgerald, Jorgenson, and Clark 2015; Haberl et al. 2009; Paech 2012). Additionally, modern work is subject to certain integrally connected and mutually reinforcing conditions inherent in industrial economic structures, which aggravate ecological impacts by further increasing the Scale factor. These include the systematic externalisation of costs, and the use of fossil fuels as crucial energy basis, which combined with modern industrial technology enable continuously rising labour productivity independently of physical, spatial or temporal constraints (Malm 2013). Taken together, this leads to constantly spurred economic growth with a corresponding growth in material and energetic throughputs, and the creation of massive amounts of waste. The latter is not an adverse side-effect of modern work, but part of its purpose under the imperatives of growth, profitability, and constant innovation, as evident in phenomena such as planned obsolescence or the ‘scrapping premium’, serving to stimulate growth and demand, and hence, job creation (Gronemeyer 2012). These conditions and effects tend to be neglected when ‘green jobs’ are promised to resolve the ecological crisis (Paus 2018), disregarding that the systematically and continuously advanced scale of work and production has grown far beyond sustainable limits (Haberl et al. 2009). Unions are intrinsically invested in labor being good – they don’t strike to get rid of work; they strike to get people back to work. Lundström 14: Lundström, Ragnar; Räthzel, Nora; Uzzell, David {Uzell is Professor (Emeritus) of Environmental Psychology at the University of Surrey with a BA Geography from the University of Liverpool, a PhD Psychology from the University of Surrey, and a MSc in Social Psychology from London School of Economics and Political Science, University of London. Lundstrom is Associate professor at Department of Sociology at Umea University. Rathzel is an Affiliated as professor emerita at Department of Sociology at Umea University.}, 14 - ("Disconnected spaces: introducing environmental perspectives into the trade union agenda top-down and bottom-up," Taylor and Francis, 12-11-2014, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23251042.2015.1041212?scroll=topandamp;needAccess=true)//marlborough-wr/ Even though there was support for environmental perspectives in LO at this time – after all, the National Congress commissioned the programme, an environmental unit was established at headquarters and a majority of the congress accepted the programme – this waned significantly when the economy was threatened. This reflects the influence of the ‘jobs vs. environment’ conflict on processes of integrating environmental perspectives into the union agenda (Räthzel and Uzzell 2011). Union policies are embedded in a mode of production marked by what Marx called the ‘metabolic rift’. The concept is one of the pillars upon which Foster develops ‘Marx’s Ecology’ (Foster 2000, 155 f). It argues that the capitalist industrial system exploits the earth without restoring its constituents to it. More generally, Marx defined the labour process as metabolism (Stoffwechsel) between nature (external to humans) and human nature. When humans work on and with nature to produce the means of their survival, they also develop their knowledge and their capabilities, and transform their own human nature (Marx 1998). Polanyi later reduced the concept of the ‘metabolic rift’ to the commodification of land (Polanyi 1944), thus paving the way for a perspective that sees the solution in the control of the market, but disregards the relations of production as they are lived by workers in the production process. But to understand why trade unions have difficulties developing and especially holding on to environmental policies it is important to recognise that since nature has become a privately owned ‘means of production’ it has become workers’ Other. Unions have been reduced and have reduced themselves to care only for one part of the inseparable relationship between nature and labour. On the everyday level of policies this means that environmental strategies lose momentum in times of economic crises and when jobs are seen to be threatened. In this respect, unions are no different from political parties and governments. In spite of numerous publications by the ILO and Union organisations, which show that a move to a ‘green economy’ can create new jobs (Poschen 2012; Rivera Alejo and Martín Murillo 2014), unions have been reluctant to exchange ‘a bird in the hand for two in the bush’ – even if the bird in the hand becomes elusive. This culminates in extinction – outweighs all aff impacts Miller-McDonald, 18 – (Samuel, Master of Environmental Management at Yale University studying energy politics and grassroots innovations in the US. 5-2-2018. "Extinction vs. Collapse." Resilience. https://www.resilience.org/stories/2018-05-02/extinction-vs-collapse/) Climate twitter – the most fun twitter – has recently been reigniting the debate between human extinction and mere civilizational collapse, between doom and gloom, despair and (kind of) hope. It was sparked by an interview in The Guardian with acclaimed scientist Mayer Hillman. He argues that we’re probably doomed, and confronting the likelihood that we’re rushing toward collective death may be necessary to save us. The headline alone provoked a lot of reactions, many angered by the ostensible defeatism embedded in Hillman’s comments. His stated view represents one defined camp that is mostly convinced of looming human extinction. It stands in contrast to another group that believes human extinction is highly unlikely, maybe impossible, and certainly will not occur due to climate change in our lifetimes. Collapse maybe, but not extinction. Who’s more right? Let’s take a closer look. First, the question of human extinction is totally bounded by uncertainty. There’s uncertainty in climate data, uncertainty in models and projections, and even more uncertainty in the behavior of human systems. We don’t know how we’ll respond to the myriad impacts climate change is beginning to spark, and we don’t know how sensitive industrial civilization will be to those impacts. We don’t really know if humans are like other apex predators highly sensitive to ecological collapse, or are among the most adaptable mammals to ever walk the earth. One may be inclined to lean toward the latter given that humans have colonized every ecological niche on the planet except Antarctica. That bands of people can survive in and around deserts as well as the Arctic as well as equatorial rainforests speaks to the resilience of small social groups. It’s why The Road is so disturbingly plausible; there could be a scenario in which basically everything is dead but people, lingering in the last grey waste of the world. On the other hand, we’ve never lived outside of the very favorable conditions of the Holocene, and past civilizational and population collapses suggest humans are in fact quite sensitive to climatic shifts. Famed climate scientist James Hansen has discussed the possibility of “Venus syndrome,” for instance, which sits at the far end of worst case scenarios. While a frightening thought experiment, it is easily dismissed as it’s based on so many uncertainties and doesn’t carry the weight of anything near consensus. What’s more frightening than potentially implausible uncertainties are the currently existing certainties. For example: Ecology + The atmosphere has proven more sensitive to GHG emissions than predicted by mainstream science, and we have a high chance of hitting 2oC of warming this century. Could hit 1.5C in the 2020s. Worst-case warming scenarios are probably the most likely. + Massive marine death is happening far faster than anyone predicted and we could be on the edge of an anoxic event. + Ice melt is happening far faster than mainstream predictions. Greenland’s ice sheet is threatening to collapse and already slowing ocean currents, which too could collapse. + Which also means predictions of sea level rise have doubled for this century. + Industrial agriculture is driving massive habitat loss and extinction. The insect collapse – population declines of 75 to 80 have been seen in some areas – is something no one predicted would happen so fast, and portends an ecological sensitivity beyond our fears. This is causing an unexpected and unprecedented bird collapse (1/8 of bird species are threatened) in Europe. + Forests, vital carbon sinks, are proving sensitive to climate impacts. + We’re living in the 6th mass extinction event, losing potentially dozens of species per day. We don’t know how this will impact us and our ability to feed ourselves. Energy + Energy transition is essential to mitigating 1.5+C warming. Energy is the single greatest contributor to anthro-GHG. And, by some estimates, transition is happening 400 years too slowly to avoid catastrophic warming. + Incumbent energy industries (that is, oil and gas) dominate governments all over the world. We live in an oil oligarchy – a petrostate, but for the globe. Every facet of the global economy is dependent on fossil fuels, and every sector – from construction to supply chains to transport to electricity to extraction to agriculture and on and on – is built around FF consumption. There’s good reason to believe FF will remain subsidized by governments beholden to their interests even if they become less economically viable than renewables, and so will maintain their dominance. + We are living in history’s largest oil and gas boom. + Kilocalorie to kilocalorie, FF is extremely dense and extremely cheap. Despite reports about solar getting cheaper than FF in some places, non-hydro/-carbon renewables are still a tiny minority (2) of global energy consumption and will simply always, by their nature, be less dense kcal to kcal than FF, and so will always be calorically more expensive. + Energy demand probably has to decrease globally to avoid 1.5C, and it’s projected to dramatically increase. Getting people to consume less is practically impossible, and efficiency measures have almost always resulted in increased consumption. + We’re still setting FF emissions records. Politics + Conditions today resemble those prior to the 20th century’s world wars: extreme wealth inequality, rampant economic insecurity, growing fascist parties/sentiment, and precarious geopolitical relations, and the Thucydides trap suggests war between Western hegemons and a rising China could be likely. These two factors could disrupt any kind of global cooperation on decarbonization and, to the contrary, will probably mean increased emissions (the US military is one of the world’s single largest consumers/emitters of FF). + Neoliberal ideology is so thoroughly embedded in our academic, political, and cultural institutions, and so endemic to discourse today, that the idea of degrowth – probably necessary to avoid collapse – and solidarity economics isn’t even close to discussion, much less realization, and, for self-evident reasons, probably never will be. + Living in a neoliberal culture also means we’ve all been trained not to sacrifice for the common good. But solving climate change, like paying more to achieve energy transition or voluntarily consuming less, will all entail sacrificing for the greater good. Humans sometimes are great at that; but the market fundamentalist ideology that pervades all social, commercial, and even self relations today stands against acting for the common good or in collective action. + There’s basically no government in the world today taking climate change seriously. There are many governments posturing and pretending to take it seriously, but none have substantially committed to a full decarbonization of their economies. (Iceland may be an exception, but Iceland is about 24 times smaller than NYC, so…) + Twenty-five years of governments knowing about climate change has resulted in essentially nothing being done about it, no emissions reductions, no substantive moves to decarbonize the economy. Politics have proven too strong for common sense, and there’s no good reason to suspect this will change anytime soon. + Wealth inequality is embedded in our economy so thoroughly – and so indigenously to FF economies – that it will probably continue either causing perpetual strife, as it has so far, or eventually cement a permanent underclass ruled by a small elite, similar to agrarian serfdom. There is a prominent view in left politics that greater wealth equality, some kind of ecosocialism, is a necessary ingredient in averting the kind of ecological collapse the economy is currently driving, given that global FF capitalism by its nature consumes beyond carrying capacities. At least according to one Nasa-funded study, the combination of inequality and ecological collapse is a likely cause for civilizational collapse. Even with this perfect storm of issues, it’s impossible to know how likely extinction is, and it’s impossible to judge how likely or extensive civilizational collapse may be. We just can’t predict how human beings and human systems will respond to the shocks that are already underway. We can make some good guesses based on history, but they’re no more than guesses. Maybe there’s a miracle energy source lurking in a hangar somewhere waiting to accelerate non-carbon transition. Maybe there’s a swelling political movement brewing under the surface that will soon build a more just, ecologically sane order into the world. Community energy programs are one reason to retain a shred of optimism; but also they’re still a tiny fraction of energy production and they are not growing fast, but they could accelerate any moment. We just don’t know how fast energy transition can happen, and we just don’t know how fast the world could descend into climate-driven chaos – either by human strife or physical storms. What we do know is that, given everything above, we are living through a confluence of events that will shake the foundations of civilization, and jeopardize our capacity to sustain large populations of humans. There is enough certainty around these issues to justify being existentially alarmed. At this point, whether we go extinct or all but a thousand of us go extinct (again), maybe that shouldn’t make much difference. Maybe the destruction of a few billion or 5 billion people is morally equivalent to the destruction of all 7 billion of us, and so should provoke equal degrees of urgency. Maybe this debate about whether we’ll go completely extinct rather than just mostly extinct is absurd. Or maybe not. I don’t know. What I do know is that, regardless of the answer, there’s no excuse to stop fighting for a world that sustains life.
The alternative is rejecting the affirmative to embrace postwork – it questions the centrality of work and ontological attachments to productivity to enable emancipatory transformation of society to an ecologically sustainable form. Your ballot symbolizes an answer to the question of whether work can be used as the solution to social ills. The plan doesn’t “happen,” and you are conditioned to valorize work – vote neg to interrogate these ideological assumptions. Hoffmann, 20 (Maja, "Resolving the ‘jobs-environment-dilemma’? The case for critiques of work in sustainability research. Taylor and Francis, 4-1-2020, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23251042.2020.1790718)//usc-br/ What is postwork? How can a ‘postwork’ approach contribute to resolving these issues? The notions critique of work (Frayne 2015a, 2015b) or postwork (Weeks 2011) have emerged in recent years in social science research and popular culture, building on a long intellectual tradition of (autonomist and neo-)Marxist, anarchist, and feminist theory (Seyferth 2019; Weeks 2011). The critique of work targets work in a fundamental sense, not only its conditions or exploitation. It is aimed at the centrality of work in modern ‘work society’ as a pivotal point for the provision of livelihoods through monetary income, the granting of social security, social inclusion, and personal identity construction, on which grounds unemployed persons and unpaid activities are excluded from recognition, welfare provision and trade union support. Moreover, the crucial role of waged work in the functioning of the welfare state and the modern industrialised economy is part of this critique (Chamberlain 2018; Frayne 2015b; Paulsen 2017). Although commonly taken as naturally given, this kind of societal order and its institutions such as the wage relation, labour markets, unemployment, or abstract time are historically and culturally exceptional modes of human coexistence (Applebaum 1992; Graeber 2018; Gorz 1989; Polanyi 2001 1944; Thompson 1967). This critique of the structures and social relations of work society is accompanied by the critique of its cultural foundation, the work ethic; an ideological commitment to work and productivism as ends in themselves, moral obligations, and as intrinsically good, regardless of what is done and at what cost (Gorz 1982; Weber 1992 1905; Weeks 2001). Postwork, however, is not only a critical stance. Criticising work and work society, aware of their historical contingency, implies the potential for an emancipatory transformation of industrial society. The focus is thereby not necessarily on abolishing work tout-court, but rather on pointing out and questioning its relentless centrality and asking what a more desirable, free and sustainable society might look like; a society in which work is no longer the pivotal point of social organisation and ideological orientation, including all questions and debates around this objective (Chamberlain 2018; Frayne 2015a; Weeks 2011). As a relatively new and dynamically developing approach, postwork is, despite similar political claims, not uniform in its reasoning. Some, drawing on the classical ‘end-of-work’ argument (Frayne 2016), assume an imminent technology-induced massive rise in unemployment. This is welcomed as an opportunity to reduce and ultimately abolish work to liberate humankind (Srnicek and Williams 2015). Others emphasise the remarkable fact that throughout the past two centuries technological development has not challenged the centrality of work in modern lives, despite the prospect that technological change would allow for much shorter working hours (e.g., Keynes 1930). This has not materialised due to the requirements of a work-centred, work-dependent society. On the contrary, work has become more central to modern societies. These deeper structural and cultural aspects and dependencies seem to remain unaffected by technological trends (Paulsen 2017; Weeks 2011). The ecological case for postwork The perspective of postwork/critiques of work may enrich sustainability debates in many ways; here, our focus is again on ecological concerns. First, postwork offers a much needed change in focus in sustainability debates, away from narrow critiques of individual consumption and the overemphasis on ‘green jobs’, towards understanding work as one central cause of sustained societal unsustainability. Postwork directs the focus towards crucial overlooked issues, e.g. the ways in which work is ecologically harmful, or which problems arise due to the social and cultural significance of modern-day work, including existential dependencies on it. Postwork seeks to re-politicise work, recognising that its conception and societal organisation are social constructs and therefore political, and must accordingly be open to debate (Weeks 2011). This opens conceptual space and enables open-minded debates about the meaning, value and purpose of work: what kind of work is, for individuals, society and the biosphere as a whole, meaningful, pointless, or outright harmful (Graeber 2018)? Such debates and enhanced understanding about the means and ends of work, and the range of problems associated with it, would be important in several regards. In ecological regard it facilitates the ecologically necessary, substantial reduction of work, production and consumption (Frey 2019; Haberl et al. 2009). Reducing work/working hours is one of the key premises of postwork, aiming at de-centring and de-normalising work, and releasing time, energy and creativity for purposes other than work (Coote 2013). From an ecological perspective, reducing the amount of work would reduce the dependency on a commodity-intensive mode of living, and allow space for more sustainable practices (Frayne 2016). Reducing work would also help mitigate all other work-induced environmental pressures described above, especially the ‘Scale factor’ (Knight, Rosa, and Schor 2013), i.e. the amount of resources and energy consumed, and waste, including emissions, created through work. A postwork approach facilitates debate on the politics of ecological work reduction which entails difficult questions: for example, which industries and fields of employment are to be phased out? Which fields will need to be favoured and upon what grounds? Which kinds of work in which sectors are socially important and should therefore be organised differently, especially when altering the energy basis of work due to climate change mitigation which implies decentralised, locally specific, intermittent and less concentrated energy sources (Malm 2013)? These questions are decisive for future (un-)sustainability, and yet serious attempts at a solution are presently forestalled by the unquestioned sanctity that work, ‘jobs’ or ‘full employment’ enjoy (Frayne 2015b). Postwork is also conducive to rethinking the organisation of work. There are plausible arguments in favour of new institutions of democratic control over the economy, i.e. economic democracy (Johanisova and Wolf 2012). This is urgent and necessary to distribute a very tight remaining carbon budget fairly and wisely (IPCC 2018), to keep economic power in check, and to gain public sovereignty over fundamental economic decisions that are pivotal for (un-)sustainable trajectories (Gould, Pellow, and Schnaiberg 2004). An obstacle to this is one institution in particular which is rarely under close scrutiny: the labour market, a social construct linked to the advent of modern work in form of the commodity of labour (Applebaum 1992). It is an undemocratic mechanism, usually characterised by high levels of unfreedom and coercion (Anderson 2017; Graeber 2018; Paulsen 2015) that allocates waged work in a competitive mode as an artificially scarce, ‘fictitious’ commodity (Polanyi 2001 1944). 4 It does so according to availability of money and motives of gain on the part of employers, and appears therefore inappropriate for distributing labour according to sustainability criteria and related societal needs. As long as unsustainable and/or unnecessary jobs are profitable and/or (well-)paid, they will continue to exist (Gorz 1989), just as ‘green jobs’ must follow these same criteria in order to be created. An ecological postwork perspective allows to question this on ecological grounds, and it links to debates on different modes of organising socially necessary work, production and provisioning in a de-commodified, democratic and sustainable mode. Finally, postwork is helpful for ecological reasons because it criticises the cultural glorification of ‘hard work’, merit and productivism, and the moral assumption that laziness and inaction are intrinsically bad, regardless the circumstances. Postwork is about a different mindset which problematises prevailing productivist attitudes and allows the idea that being lazy or unproductive can be something inherently valuable. Idleness is conducive to an ecological agenda as nothing is evidently more carbon-neutral and environment-sparing than being absolutely unproductive. As time-use studies indicate, leisure, recreation and socialising have very low ecological impacts, with rest and sleep having virtually none (Druckman et al. 2012). Apart from humans, the biosphere also needs idle time for regeneration. In this sense, laziness or ‘ecological leisure’, ideally sleep, can be regarded as supremely ecofriendly states of being that would help mitigate ecological pressures. Moreover, as postwork traces which changes in attitudes towards time, efficiency and laziness have brought modern work culture and modern time regimes into being in the first place and have dominated ever since (Thompson 1967; Weber 1992 1905), it provides crucial knowledge for understanding and potentially changing this historically peculiar construction. It can thereby take inspiration from longstanding traditions throughout human history, where leisure has usually been a high social ideal and regarded as vital for realising genuine freedom and quality of life (Applebaum 1992; Gorz 1989). Conclusions: postwork politics and practices We argued that modern-day work is a central cause for unsustainability, and should therefore be transformed to advance towards sustainability. We have contributed to this field of research, firstly, by developing a systematisation of the ecological harms associated with work – comprising the factors Scale, Time, Income, and Work-induced Mobility, Infrastructure, and Consumption – taking those studies one step further which investigate the ecological impacts of working hours quantitatively. One of the analytical advantages of this approach is that it avoids the mystification of work through indirect measures of economic activity (such as per capita GDP), as in the numerous analyses of the conflict between sustainability and economic growth in general. Our second substantial contribution consists in combining these ecological impacts of work with an analysis of the various structural dependencies on work in modern society, which spells out clearly what the recurring jobs-environment-dilemma actually implies, and why it is so difficult to overcome. While this dilemma is often vaguely referred to, this has been the first more detailed analysis of the different dimensions that essentially constitute it. Reviewing the literature in environmental sociology and sustainability research more generally, we also found the work-environment-dilemma and the role of work itself are not sufficiently addressed and remain major unresolved issues. We proposed the field would benefit from taking up the long intellectual tradition of problematising modern-day work, through the approach of postwork or critiques of work. While the described problems of unsustainability and entrenched dependencies cannot easily be resolved, we discussed how postwork arguments can contribute to pointing out and understanding them, and to opening up new perspectives to advance sustainability debates. A third contribution is therefore to have introduced the concept of postwork/critiques of work into sustainability research and the work-environment debate, and to have conducted an initial analysis of the ways in which postwork may be helpful for tackling ecological problems. Besides being ecologically beneficial, it may also serve emancipatory purposes to ‘raise broader questions about the place of work in our lives and spark the imagination of a life no longer so subordinate to it’ (Weeks 2011, 33). In order to inspire such ‘postwork imagination’ (Weeks 2011, 35, 110) and show that postwork ideas are not as detached from reality as they may sound, in this last section we briefly outline examples of existing postwork politics and practices. The most obvious example is the reduction of working hours during the 19th and 20th centuries. These reforms were essential to the early labour movement, and the notion that increasing productivity entails shorter working hours has never been nearly as ‘radical’ as today (Paulsen 2017). As concerns about climate change are rising, there is also renewed awareness about the ecological benefits of worktime reduction, besides a whole range of other social and economic advantages (Coote 2013; Frey 2019). Worktime reduction is usually taken up positively in public debate. Carlsson (2015, 184) sees a ‘growing minority of people’ who engage in practices other than waged work to support themselves and make meaningful contributions to society. Frayne (2015b) describes the practical refusal of work by average people who wish to live more independently of the treadmill of work. Across society, the disaffection with work is no marginal phenomenon (Graeber 2018; Cederström and Fleming 2012; Paulsen 2014, 2015; Weeks 2011); many start to realise the ‘dissonance between the mythical sanctity of work on the one hand, and the troubling realities of people’s actual experiences on the other’ (Frayne 2015b, 228). Public debates are therefore increasingly receptive to issues such as industries’ responsibility for climate change, coercive ‘workfare’ policies, meaningless ‘bullshit jobs’, or ‘work-life-balance’, shorter hours, overwork and burnout; topics ‘that will not go away’ (Coote 2013, xix) and question the organisation of work society more fundamentally. 5 The debate about an unconditional basic income (UBI) will also remain. UBI would break the existential dependency of livelihoods on paid work and serve as a new kind of social contract to entitle people to social security regardless of paid economic activity. In addition to countless models in theory, examples of UBI schemes exist in practice, either currently implemented or planned as ‘experiments’ (Srnicek and Williams 2015). The critique and refusal of work also takes place both within the sphere of wage labour and outside it. Within, the notions of absenteeism, tardiness, shirking, theft, or sabotage (Pouget 1913 1898; Seyferth 2019) have a long tradition, dating back to early struggles against work and industrialisation (Thompson 1967), and common until today (Paulsen 2014). The idea of such deliberate ‘workplace resistance’ is that the ability to resist meaningless work and the internalised norms of work society, and be idle and useless while at work, can be recognised and successfully practised (Campagna 2013; Scott 2012). Similarly, there is a growing interest in productive practices, social relations, and the commons outside the sphere of wage labour and market relations, for example in community-supported agriculture. This initiates ways of organising work and the economy to satisfy material needs otherwise than by means of commodity consumption (Chamberlain 2018; Helfrich and Bollier 2015). For such modes of organising productive social relations in more varied ways, inspiration could be drawn from the forms of ‘work’ that are prevalent in the global South in the so-called informal sector and in non-industrial crafts and peasantry, neither of which resemble the cultural phenomenon of modern-day work with its origins in the colonial North (Comaroff and Comaroff 1987; Thompson 1967). This, however, contradicts the global development paradigm, under which industrialisation, ‘economic upgrading’, global (labour) market integration and ‘structural transformation’ are pursued. Modern work, especially industrial factory jobs and ideally in cities, is supposed to help ‘the poor’ to escape their misery (Banerjee and Duflo 2012; UNDP 2015). Many of these other forms of livelihood provisioning and associated ways of life are thus disregarded, denigrated or destroyed as underdeveloped, backward, poor, and lazy (Thompson 1967), and drawn into the formal system of waged work as cheap labour in capitalist markets and global supply chains – ‘improved living conditions’ as measured in formal pecuniary income (Rosling 2018; Comaroff and Comaroff 1987). There are indications that these transformations create structural poverty, highly vulnerable jobs and an imposed dependence on wage labour (while few viable wage labour structures exist) (Hickel 2017; Srnicek and Williams 2015). There is also clear evidence of numerous struggles against capitalist development and for traditional livelihood protection and environmental justice (Anguelovski 2015). These are aspects where a postwork orientation is relevant beyond the industrialised societies of the global North, as it puts a focus on the modern phenomenon ‘work’ itself and the conditions that led to its predominance, as it questions the common narrative that ‘jobs’ are an end in themselves and justify all kinds of problematic development, and as it allows to ask which alternative, postcolonial critiques and conceptualisations of ‘work’ exist and should be preserved. To conclude, we clearly find traces of postwork organisation and politics in the present. However, these ideas are contested; they concern the roots of modern culture, society and industrial-capitalist economies. Waged work continues to be normalised, alternatives beyond niches appear quite impractical for generalisation. Powerful economic interests, including trade unions, seek to perpetuate the status-quo (Lundström, Räthzel, and Uzzell 2015). Job creation and (global) labour market integration (regardless of what kind) are central policy goals of all political parties, and presently popular progressive debates on a Green New Deal tend to exhibit a rather productivist stance. There is one particular aspect that appears hopeful: the present socio-economic system is unsustainable in the literal sense that it is physically impossible to be sustained in the long run. It was Weber (19921905) who predicted that the powerful cosmos of the modern economic order will be determining with overwhelming force until the last bit of fossil fuel is burnt – and exactly this needs to happen soon to avert catastrophic climate change. 6 This is the battlefield of sustainability, and lately there has been renewed urgency and momentum for more profound social change, where it might be realised that a different societal trajectory beyond work and productivism for their own sake is more sustainable and desirable for the future.
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Tournament: Damus Hollywood | Round: 5 | Opponent: Aarush Vailaya | Judge: Leah Villanueva NC Shell The aff’s refusal to work is not a refusal of work – their endorsement of striking reinforces the belief that withholding labor puts people in a position of power. This reduces humans to labor capital, which causes work-dependency and inhibits alternatives. Hoffmann, 20 (Maja, "Resolving the ‘jobs-environment-dilemma’? The case for critiques of work in sustainability research. Taylor and Francis, 4-1-2020, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23251042.2020.1790718)//usc-br/ The societal dependence on work If work is associated with environmental pressures in at least four different ways, why do we have to maintain it at constant or increased levels? We hold that in industrial society four distinct levels of structural and cultural dependency on work may be discerned. These are to be understood as broad analytical categories which in reality comprise and cross individual and structural levels in various ways, and are all interdependent. Personal dependence. A first aspect is individual or personal dependence on work: Work as regular, gainful employment constitutes one of the central social relations in modern ‘work society’ and is a central point of reference in people’s lives. As a principal source of income, waged work fulfils the existential function of providing livelihoods and social security. It is constructed to secure basic social rights, social integration, recognition, status, and personal identity (Frayne 2015b; Weeks 2011). This is probably why ‘social’ is so often equated with ‘work’. State dependence. Secondly, dependence on work pertains to the modern welfare state: the revenues and economic growth generated through work contribute substantially to the financing of social security systems. Affording welfare is therefore a main argument for creating jobs. Wage labour is thus a dominating tool for redistribution; through wages, taxes on wages and on the consumption that production generates, almost all distribution takes place. Hence, what the job is, and what is being produced, is of secondary importance (Paulsen 2017). Work is moreover a convenient instrument of control that structures and disciplines society, and ‘renders populations at once productive and governable’ (Weeks 2011, 54; Gorz 1982; Lafargue 2014 1883). Specifically, the dominant neoliberal ideology, its condemnation of laziness and idealisation of ‘hardworking people’ has intensified the ‘moral fortification of work’. Accordingly, the neoliberal ‘workfare’ reforms have focused on job creation and the relentless activation for the labour market, effectively ‘enforcing work (…) as a key function of the state’ (Frayne 2015b, 16). Economic dependence. Thirdly, besides the economic imperative for individuals to ‘earn a living’ and pay off debt, modern economies are dependent on work in terms of an industrious labour force, long working hours for increasing economic output under the imperatives of capital accumulation, growth and competition, and rising incomes for increasing purchasing power and demand. Creating or preserving jobs constitutes the standard argument for economic growth. In turn, work as one basic factor of production creates growth. However, the relation between growth and employment is conditioned, amongst other factors, primarily by constantly pursued labour productivity: for employment to rise or stay stable, the economy must grow at a sufficiently high rate to exceed productivity gains, in order to offset job losses and avoid ‘jobless growth’. Moreover, faltering expansion triggers a spiral of recession which not only affects economic stability but results in societal crises as a whole (Jackson 2009; Paech 2012). However, besides being unsustainable and insatiable, growth is also increasingly unlikely to continue at the rates required for economic stability (Kallis et al. 2018; IMF 2015). The individual and structural economic dependence on work and economic growth therefore implies profound vulnerability as livelihoods and political stability are fatefully exposed to global competition and the capitalist imperative of capital accumulation, and constrained by ‘systemically relevant’ job and growth creating companies, industries and global (financial) markets (Gronemeyer 2012; Paech 2012). Cultural dependence. A fourth aspect concerns cultural dependence: The ‘work ethic’ is the specific morality described by Max Weber (19921905) as constitutive of modern industrial culture, 2 and determining for all its subjects as shared ‘common senses’ about how work is valued and understood. It means an ingrained moral compulsion to gainful work and timesaving, manifested in the common ideals of productivity, achievement and entrepreneurship, in the feeling of guilt when time is ‘wasted’, in personal identification with one’s ‘calling’, in observations of busyness, even burnout as a ‘badge of honour’ (Paulsen 2014), and in descriptions of a culture that has lost the ‘capacity to relax in the old, uninhibited ways’ (Thompson 1967, 91). Even for those who do not share such attitudes towards work, in a work-centred culture it is normal to (seek) work. It is so commonsensical that it seems impractical to question it, and it continues to be normalised through socialisation and schooling. Consequently, people become limited in their imagination of alternatives, the prospect of losing one’s job usually causes heartfelt fear (Standing 2011). For a work society that ‘does no longer know of those other higher and more meaningful activities for the sake of which this freedom would deserve to be won’, there can be nothing worse than the cessation of work (Hannah Arendt, cited in Gorz 1989, 7–8). The wage relation based on the commodity labour is, in other words, an essential functional feature of the industrial-capitalist system, and the exaltation of work remains its social ethic. For modern industrial society work is ‘both its chief means and its ultimate goal’ (Gorz 1989, 13; Weber 1992 1905; Weeks 2011); it is centred and structurally dependent on work, despite work’s environmentally adverse implications. This constellation constitutes the dilemma between work and the environment, and it is why we argue that work is absolutely central to present-day unsustainability and should accordingly be dealt with in sustainability research. Work necessitates material throughput and waste that destroys the environment, even when the jobs are ‘green’ Hoffmann, 20 (Maja, "Resolving the ‘jobs-environment-dilemma’? The case for critiques of work in sustainability research. Taylor and Francis, 4-1-2020, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23251042.2020.1790718)//usc-br/ An ecological critique of work What is the problem with modern-day work from an environmental perspective? A number of quantitative studies have researched the correlation of working hours and environmental impacts in terms of ecological footprint, carbon footprint, greenhouse gas emissions, and energy consumption, both on micro/household and on macro/cross-national levels, and for both ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ countries (Fitzgerald, Jorgenson, and Clark 2015; Hayden and Shandra 2009; Knight, Rosa, and Schor 2013; Nässén and Larsson 2015; Rosnick and Weisbrot 2007). Based on these findings, and going beyond them, we develop a qualitative classification of ecological impacts of work broadly (not working hours only), distinguishing four analytically distinct factors (Hoffmann 2017). Fundamentally, all productive activity is based on material and energy throughputs within wider ecological conditions, which necessarily involves interference with the ecosphere. The appropriation and exploitation of non-human animals, land, soil, water, biomass, raw materials, the atmosphere and all other elements of the biosphere always to some extent causes pollution, degradation, and destruction. Thus, work is inherently both productive and destructive. However, this biophysical basis alone need not make work unsustainable, and it has not always been so (Krausmann 2017). Contributing to its unsustainability is, firstly, the Scale factor: the greater the amount of work, the more ‘inputs’ are required and the more ‘outputs’ generated, which means more throughput of resources and energy, and resulting ecological impacts. In other words, the more work, the larger the size of the economy, the more demands on the biosphere (Hayden and Shandra 2009; Knight, Rosa, and Schor 2013). Obviously, there are qualitative differences between different types of work and their respective environmental impacts. Moreover, besides the evident and direct impacts, indirect impacts matter also. The tertiary/service sector is therefore not exempt from this reasoning (Hayden and Shandra 2009; Knight, Rosa, and Schor 2013), not only due to its own (often ‘embodied’) materiality and energy requirements, but also because it administrates and supports industrial production processes in global supply chains (Fitzgerald, Jorgenson, and Clark 2015; Haberl et al. 2009; Paech 2012). Additionally, modern work is subject to certain integrally connected and mutually reinforcing conditions inherent in industrial economic structures, which aggravate ecological impacts by further increasing the Scale factor. These include the systematic externalisation of costs, and the use of fossil fuels as crucial energy basis, which combined with modern industrial technology enable continuously rising labour productivity independently of physical, spatial or temporal constraints (Malm 2013). Taken together, this leads to constantly spurred economic growth with a corresponding growth in material and energetic throughputs, and the creation of massive amounts of waste. The latter is not an adverse side-effect of modern work, but part of its purpose under the imperatives of growth, profitability, and constant innovation, as evident in phenomena such as planned obsolescence or the ‘scrapping premium’, serving to stimulate growth and demand, and hence, job creation (Gronemeyer 2012). These conditions and effects tend to be neglected when ‘green jobs’ are promised to resolve the ecological crisis (Paus 2018), disregarding that the systematically and continuously advanced scale of work and production has grown far beyond sustainable limits (Haberl et al. 2009). Unions are intrinsically invested in labor being good – they don’t strike to get rid of work; they strike to get people back to work. Lundström 14: Lundström, Ragnar; Räthzel, Nora; Uzzell, David {Uzell is Professor (Emeritus) of Environmental Psychology at the University of Surrey with a BA Geography from the University of Liverpool, a PhD Psychology from the University of Surrey, and a MSc in Social Psychology from London School of Economics and Political Science, University of London. Lundstrom is Associate professor at Department of Sociology at Umea University. Rathzel is an Affiliated as professor emerita at Department of Sociology at Umea University.}, 14 - ("Disconnected spaces: introducing environmental perspectives into the trade union agenda top-down and bottom-up," Taylor and Francis, 12-11-2014, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23251042.2015.1041212?scroll=topandamp;needAccess=true)//marlborough-wr/ Even though there was support for environmental perspectives in LO at this time – after all, the National Congress commissioned the programme, an environmental unit was established at headquarters and a majority of the congress accepted the programme – this waned significantly when the economy was threatened. This reflects the influence of the ‘jobs vs. environment’ conflict on processes of integrating environmental perspectives into the union agenda (Räthzel and Uzzell 2011). Union policies are embedded in a mode of production marked by what Marx called the ‘metabolic rift’. The concept is one of the pillars upon which Foster develops ‘Marx’s Ecology’ (Foster 2000, 155 f). It argues that the capitalist industrial system exploits the earth without restoring its constituents to it. More generally, Marx defined the labour process as metabolism (Stoffwechsel) between nature (external to humans) and human nature. When humans work on and with nature to produce the means of their survival, they also develop their knowledge and their capabilities, and transform their own human nature (Marx 1998). Polanyi later reduced the concept of the ‘metabolic rift’ to the commodification of land (Polanyi 1944), thus paving the way for a perspective that sees the solution in the control of the market, but disregards the relations of production as they are lived by workers in the production process. But to understand why trade unions have difficulties developing and especially holding on to environmental policies it is important to recognise that since nature has become a privately owned ‘means of production’ it has become workers’ Other. Unions have been reduced and have reduced themselves to care only for one part of the inseparable relationship between nature and labour. On the everyday level of policies this means that environmental strategies lose momentum in times of economic crises and when jobs are seen to be threatened. In this respect, unions are no different from political parties and governments. In spite of numerous publications by the ILO and Union organisations, which show that a move to a ‘green economy’ can create new jobs (Poschen 2012; Rivera Alejo and Martín Murillo 2014), unions have been reluctant to exchange ‘a bird in the hand for two in the bush’ – even if the bird in the hand becomes elusive. The alternative is rejecting the affirmative to embrace postwork – it questions the centrality of work and ontological attachments to productivity to enable emancipatory transformation of society to an ecologically sustainable form. Your ballot symbolizes an answer to the question of whether work can be used as the solution to social ills. The plan doesn’t “happen,” and you are conditioned to valorize work – vote neg to interrogate these ideological assumptions. Hoffmann, 20 (Maja, "Resolving the ‘jobs-environment-dilemma’? The case for critiques of work in sustainability research. Taylor and Francis, 4-1-2020, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23251042.2020.1790718)//usc-br/ What is postwork? How can a ‘postwork’ approach contribute to resolving these issues? The notions critique of work (Frayne 2015a, 2015b) or postwork (Weeks 2011) have emerged in recent years in social science research and popular culture, building on a long intellectual tradition of (autonomist and neo-)Marxist, anarchist, and feminist theory (Seyferth 2019; Weeks 2011). The critique of work targets work in a fundamental sense, not only its conditions or exploitation. It is aimed at the centrality of work in modern ‘work society’ as a pivotal point for the provision of livelihoods through monetary income, the granting of social security, social inclusion, and personal identity construction, on which grounds unemployed persons and unpaid activities are excluded from recognition, welfare provision and trade union support. Moreover, the crucial role of waged work in the functioning of the welfare state and the modern industrialised economy is part of this critique (Chamberlain 2018; Frayne 2015b; Paulsen 2017). Although commonly taken as naturally given, this kind of societal order and its institutions such as the wage relation, labour markets, unemployment, or abstract time are historically and culturally exceptional modes of human coexistence (Applebaum 1992; Graeber 2018; Gorz 1989; Polanyi 2001 1944; Thompson 1967). This critique of the structures and social relations of work society is accompanied by the critique of its cultural foundation, the work ethic; an ideological commitment to work and productivism as ends in themselves, moral obligations, and as intrinsically good, regardless of what is done and at what cost (Gorz 1982; Weber 1992 1905; Weeks 2001). Postwork, however, is not only a critical stance. Criticising work and work society, aware of their historical contingency, implies the potential for an emancipatory transformation of industrial society. The focus is thereby not necessarily on abolishing work tout-court, but rather on pointing out and questioning its relentless centrality and asking what a more desirable, free and sustainable society might look like; a society in which work is no longer the pivotal point of social organisation and ideological orientation, including all questions and debates around this objective (Chamberlain 2018; Frayne 2015a; Weeks 2011). As a relatively new and dynamically developing approach, postwork is, despite similar political claims, not uniform in its reasoning. Some, drawing on the classical ‘end-of-work’ argument (Frayne 2016), assume an imminent technology-induced massive rise in unemployment. This is welcomed as an opportunity to reduce and ultimately abolish work to liberate humankind (Srnicek and Williams 2015). Others emphasise the remarkable fact that throughout the past two centuries technological development has not challenged the centrality of work in modern lives, despite the prospect that technological change would allow for much shorter working hours (e.g., Keynes 1930). This has not materialised due to the requirements of a work-centred, work-dependent society. On the contrary, work has become more central to modern societies. These deeper structural and cultural aspects and dependencies seem to remain unaffected by technological trends (Paulsen 2017; Weeks 2011). The ecological case for postwork The perspective of postwork/critiques of work may enrich sustainability debates in many ways; here, our focus is again on ecological concerns. First, postwork offers a much needed change in focus in sustainability debates, away from narrow critiques of individual consumption and the overemphasis on ‘green jobs’, towards understanding work as one central cause of sustained societal unsustainability. Postwork directs the focus towards crucial overlooked issues, e.g. the ways in which work is ecologically harmful, or which problems arise due to the social and cultural significance of modern-day work, including existential dependencies on it. Postwork seeks to re-politicise work, recognising that its conception and societal organisation are social constructs and therefore political, and must accordingly be open to debate (Weeks 2011). This opens conceptual space and enables open-minded debates about the meaning, value and purpose of work: what kind of work is, for individuals, society and the biosphere as a whole, meaningful, pointless, or outright harmful (Graeber 2018)? Such debates and enhanced understanding about the means and ends of work, and the range of problems associated with it, would be important in several regards. In ecological regard it facilitates the ecologically necessary, substantial reduction of work, production and consumption (Frey 2019; Haberl et al. 2009). Reducing work/working hours is one of the key premises of postwork, aiming at de-centring and de-normalising work, and releasing time, energy and creativity for purposes other than work (Coote 2013). From an ecological perspective, reducing the amount of work would reduce the dependency on a commodity-intensive mode of living, and allow space for more sustainable practices (Frayne 2016). Reducing work would also help mitigate all other work-induced environmental pressures described above, especially the ‘Scale factor’ (Knight, Rosa, and Schor 2013), i.e. the amount of resources and energy consumed, and waste, including emissions, created through work. A postwork approach facilitates debate on the politics of ecological work reduction which entails difficult questions: for example, which industries and fields of employment are to be phased out? Which fields will need to be favoured and upon what grounds? Which kinds of work in which sectors are socially important and should therefore be organised differently, especially when altering the energy basis of work due to climate change mitigation which implies decentralised, locally specific, intermittent and less concentrated energy sources (Malm 2013)? These questions are decisive for future (un-)sustainability, and yet serious attempts at a solution are presently forestalled by the unquestioned sanctity that work, ‘jobs’ or ‘full employment’ enjoy (Frayne 2015b). Postwork is also conducive to rethinking the organisation of work. There are plausible arguments in favour of new institutions of democratic control over the economy, i.e. economic democracy (Johanisova and Wolf 2012). This is urgent and necessary to distribute a very tight remaining carbon budget fairly and wisely (IPCC 2018), to keep economic power in check, and to gain public sovereignty over fundamental economic decisions that are pivotal for (un-)sustainable trajectories (Gould, Pellow, and Schnaiberg 2004). An obstacle to this is one institution in particular which is rarely under close scrutiny: the labour market, a social construct linked to the advent of modern work in form of the commodity of labour (Applebaum 1992). It is an undemocratic mechanism, usually characterised by high levels of unfreedom and coercion (Anderson 2017; Graeber 2018; Paulsen 2015) that allocates waged work in a competitive mode as an artificially scarce, ‘fictitious’ commodity (Polanyi 2001 1944). 4 It does so according to availability of money and motives of gain on the part of employers, and appears therefore inappropriate for distributing labour according to sustainability criteria and related societal needs. As long as unsustainable and/or unnecessary jobs are profitable and/or (well-)paid, they will continue to exist (Gorz 1989), just as ‘green jobs’ must follow these same criteria in order to be created. An ecological postwork perspective allows to question this on ecological grounds, and it links to debates on different modes of organising socially necessary work, production and provisioning in a de-commodified, democratic and sustainable mode. Finally, postwork is helpful for ecological reasons because it criticises the cultural glorification of ‘hard work’, merit and productivism, and the moral assumption that laziness and inaction are intrinsically bad, regardless the circumstances. Postwork is about a different mindset which problematises prevailing productivist attitudes and allows the idea that being lazy or unproductive can be something inherently valuable. Idleness is conducive to an ecological agenda as nothing is evidently more carbon-neutral and environment-sparing than being absolutely unproductive. As time-use studies indicate, leisure, recreation and socialising have very low ecological impacts, with rest and sleep having virtually none (Druckman et al. 2012). Apart from humans, the biosphere also needs idle time for regeneration. In this sense, laziness or ‘ecological leisure’, ideally sleep, can be regarded as supremely ecofriendly states of being that would help mitigate ecological pressures. Moreover, as postwork traces which changes in attitudes towards time, efficiency and laziness have brought modern work culture and modern time regimes into being in the first place and have dominated ever since (Thompson 1967; Weber 1992 1905), it provides crucial knowledge for understanding and potentially changing this historically peculiar construction. It can thereby take inspiration from longstanding traditions throughout human history, where leisure has usually been a high social ideal and regarded as vital for realising genuine freedom and quality of life (Applebaum 1992; Gorz 1989). Conclusions: postwork politics and practices We argued that modern-day work is a central cause for unsustainability, and should therefore be transformed to advance towards sustainability. We have contributed to this field of research, firstly, by developing a systematisation of the ecological harms associated with work – comprising the factors Scale, Time, Income, and Work-induced Mobility, Infrastructure, and Consumption – taking those studies one step further which investigate the ecological impacts of working hours quantitatively. One of the analytical advantages of this approach is that it avoids the mystification of work through indirect measures of economic activity (such as per capita GDP), as in the numerous analyses of the conflict between sustainability and economic growth in general. Our second substantial contribution consists in combining these ecological impacts of work with an analysis of the various structural dependencies on work in modern society, which spells out clearly what the recurring jobs-environment-dilemma actually implies, and why it is so difficult to overcome. While this dilemma is often vaguely referred to, this has been the first more detailed analysis of the different dimensions that essentially constitute it. Reviewing the literature in environmental sociology and sustainability research more generally, we also found the work-environment-dilemma and the role of work itself are not sufficiently addressed and remain major unresolved issues. We proposed the field would benefit from taking up the long intellectual tradition of problematising modern-day work, through the approach of postwork or critiques of work. While the described problems of unsustainability and entrenched dependencies cannot easily be resolved, we discussed how postwork arguments can contribute to pointing out and understanding them, and to opening up new perspectives to advance sustainability debates. A third contribution is therefore to have introduced the concept of postwork/critiques of work into sustainability research and the work-environment debate, and to have conducted an initial analysis of the ways in which postwork may be helpful for tackling ecological problems. Besides being ecologically beneficial, it may also serve emancipatory purposes to ‘raise broader questions about the place of work in our lives and spark the imagination of a life no longer so subordinate to it’ (Weeks 2011, 33). In order to inspire such ‘postwork imagination’ (Weeks 2011, 35, 110) and show that postwork ideas are not as detached from reality as they may sound, in this last section we briefly outline examples of existing postwork politics and practices. The most obvious example is the reduction of working hours during the 19th and 20th centuries. These reforms were essential to the early labour movement, and the notion that increasing productivity entails shorter working hours has never been nearly as ‘radical’ as today (Paulsen 2017). As concerns about climate change are rising, there is also renewed awareness about the ecological benefits of worktime reduction, besides a whole range of other social and economic advantages (Coote 2013; Frey 2019). Worktime reduction is usually taken up positively in public debate. Carlsson (2015, 184) sees a ‘growing minority of people’ who engage in practices other than waged work to support themselves and make meaningful contributions to society. Frayne (2015b) describes the practical refusal of work by average people who wish to live more independently of the treadmill of work. Across society, the disaffection with work is no marginal phenomenon (Graeber 2018; Cederström and Fleming 2012; Paulsen 2014, 2015; Weeks 2011); many start to realise the ‘dissonance between the mythical sanctity of work on the one hand, and the troubling realities of people’s actual experiences on the other’ (Frayne 2015b, 228). Public debates are therefore increasingly receptive to issues such as industries’ responsibility for climate change, coercive ‘workfare’ policies, meaningless ‘bullshit jobs’, or ‘work-life-balance’, shorter hours, overwork and burnout; topics ‘that will not go away’ (Coote 2013, xix) and question the organisation of work society more fundamentally. 5 The debate about an unconditional basic income (UBI) will also remain. UBI would break the existential dependency of livelihoods on paid work and serve as a new kind of social contract to entitle people to social security regardless of paid economic activity. In addition to countless models in theory, examples of UBI schemes exist in practice, either currently implemented or planned as ‘experiments’ (Srnicek and Williams 2015). The critique and refusal of work also takes place both within the sphere of wage labour and outside it. Within, the notions of absenteeism, tardiness, shirking, theft, or sabotage (Pouget 1913 1898; Seyferth 2019) have a long tradition, dating back to early struggles against work and industrialisation (Thompson 1967), and common until today (Paulsen 2014). The idea of such deliberate ‘workplace resistance’ is that the ability to resist meaningless work and the internalised norms of work society, and be idle and useless while at work, can be recognised and successfully practised (Campagna 2013; Scott 2012). Similarly, there is a growing interest in productive practices, social relations, and the commons outside the sphere of wage labour and market relations, for example in community-supported agriculture. This initiates ways of organising work and the economy to satisfy material needs otherwise than by means of commodity consumption (Chamberlain 2018; Helfrich and Bollier 2015). For such modes of organising productive social relations in more varied ways, inspiration could be drawn from the forms of ‘work’ that are prevalent in the global South in the so-called informal sector and in non-industrial crafts and peasantry, neither of which resemble the cultural phenomenon of modern-day work with its origins in the colonial North (Comaroff and Comaroff 1987; Thompson 1967). This, however, contradicts the global development paradigm, under which industrialisation, ‘economic upgrading’, global (labour) market integration and ‘structural transformation’ are pursued. Modern work, especially industrial factory jobs and ideally in cities, is supposed to help ‘the poor’ to escape their misery (Banerjee and Duflo 2012; UNDP 2015). Many of these other forms of livelihood provisioning and associated ways of life are thus disregarded, denigrated or destroyed as underdeveloped, backward, poor, and lazy (Thompson 1967), and drawn into the formal system of waged work as cheap labour in capitalist markets and global supply chains – ‘improved living conditions’ as measured in formal pecuniary income (Rosling 2018; Comaroff and Comaroff 1987). There are indications that these transformations create structural poverty, highly vulnerable jobs and an imposed dependence on wage labour (while few viable wage labour structures exist) (Hickel 2017; Srnicek and Williams 2015). There is also clear evidence of numerous struggles against capitalist development and for traditional livelihood protection and environmental justice (Anguelovski 2015). These are aspects where a postwork orientation is relevant beyond the industrialised societies of the global North, as it puts a focus on the modern phenomenon ‘work’ itself and the conditions that led to its predominance, as it questions the common narrative that ‘jobs’ are an end in themselves and justify all kinds of problematic development, and as it allows to ask which alternative, postcolonial critiques and conceptualisations of ‘work’ exist and should be preserved. To conclude, we clearly find traces of postwork organisation and politics in the present. However, these ideas are contested; they concern the roots of modern culture, society and industrial-capitalist economies. Waged work continues to be normalised, alternatives beyond niches appear quite impractical for generalisation. Powerful economic interests, including trade unions, seek to perpetuate the status-quo (Lundström, Räthzel, and Uzzell 2015). Job creation and (global) labour market integration (regardless of what kind) are central policy goals of all political parties, and presently popular progressive debates on a Green New Deal tend to exhibit a rather productivist stance. There is one particular aspect that appears hopeful: the present socio-economic system is unsustainable in the literal sense that it is physically impossible to be sustained in the long run. It was Weber (19921905) who predicted that the powerful cosmos of the modern economic order will be determining with overwhelming force until the last bit of fossil fuel is burnt – and exactly this needs to happen soon to avert catastrophic climate change. 6 This is the battlefield of sustainability, and lately there has been renewed urgency and momentum for more profound social change, where it might be realised that a different societal trajectory beyond work and productivism for their own sake is more sustainable and desirable for the future. Case AT Democracy Democratic erosion is occurring because the Supreme Court is a lawless, partisan institution, not because of a lack of strikes Keck 20 – Thomas Keck, Michael O. Sawyer Chair of Constitutional Law and Politics and Professor of Political Science at Syracuse University, “Court-Packing and Democratic Erosion,” 12/17/20, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3476889 Scholars of democratic erosion have noticed the GOP’s partisan capture of the federal courts and flagged it as a potential warning sign, but may well have understated the severity of the danger to democratic norms and institutions. For example, remarking on the Supreme Court twenty months into Trump’s pvresidency, Kaufman and Haggard diagnosed “a serious threat that a constitutionally-created branch of the government—one that is already deeply divided along partisan lines—will become even more politicized and delegitimated.” On their reading, “the most direct threat to American democracy would be judicial acquiescence to restrictions on voting rights” (2019: 426). Ginsburg and Huq have likewise noted that partisan judges, like legislators, “may be willing to allow a president to dismantle democratic governance so long as their own policy preferences are furthered” (2018a: 219). Such judicial acquiescence in the face of legislative restrictions on voting rights is indeed a significant threat, but the bigger danger to American democracy is judicial evisceration of legislative expansions of voting rights. Consider David Landau and Rosalind Dixon’s account of “abusive judicial review,” by which they mean the use of judicial power to undermine the “minimum core of electoral democracy.” Drawing on comparative evidence from a range of states experiencing democratic erosion, Landau and Dixon identify two variants of the phenomenon. In its weak form, abusive judicial review involves courts “standing by passively as democracy is dismantled”; in its strong form, it involves courts actively undermining key democratic norms and institutions (2020: 1316-17). The Roberts Court has engaged in both versions of the practice.¶ In this section, I briefly review two instances in which the contemporary Court has declined to check legislative infringements on fair democratic procedures, and two others in which it has reached out to actively thwart legislative enhancements of democratic procedures. In Crawford v. Marion County Election Board (2008), the Court upheld Indiana’s strict voter ID law, despite clear evidence that the photo identification requirement would “impose nontrivial burdens on the voting rights of tens of thousands of the state’s citizens . . . , with a significant percentage of those individuals . . . likely to be deterred from voting.”11 The law had been enacted on a party-line vote in Indiana’s Republican-controlled legislature, and Seventh Circuit Judge Terence Evans characterized it as “a not-too-thinly-veiled attempt to discourage electionday turnout by certain folks believed to skew Democratic.”12 In subsequent litigation regarding an even stricter law from Wisconsin, Circuit Judge Richard Posner noted that roughly nine percent of registered voters in the state lacked the required state-issued identification. Posner also reviewed sworn testimony from multiple registered voters who had attempted to obtain such identification, but had been unable to do so. 13 Relying on Crawford, Posner’s colleagues nonetheless upheld the Wisconsin law as well. ¶ A decade after Crawford, the Court held in Rucho v. Common Cause (2019) that claims of intentional and excessive partisan gerrymandering are not subject to judicial resolution under the U.S. Constitution. The case featured uncontroverted evidence that following the 2010 census, the Republican-controlled North Carolina legislature had “instructed their mapmaker to use political data to draw a map that would produce a congressional delegation of ten Republicans and three Democrats.” In all recent election cycles, votes for statewide offices and aggregate votes for House candidates have evinced a state split nearly 50-50, with Democrats winning the aggregate House vote in 2012 and the Governor’s race in 2016. But the Republican gerrymander successfully maintained a 10-3 GOP majority in the House delegation across three consecutive election cycles. Despite this context, Chief Justice Roberts declined to impose any constitutional limits on the drawing of district lines to “subordinate adherents of one political party and entrench a rival party in power,” even where that desire represents the “predominant purpose” of the line-drawing.14¶ The central premise of Roberts’s argument for allowing such partisan gerrymandering is that the Constitution grants such authority to state legislatures in the first instance (and to Congress secondarily), and hence that the American people should bring their complaints about existing districting practices to their elected representatives, not to the Court. But relying on selfinterested legislators to reform the procedures under which they themselves have been elected has the same shortcomings that it had in Baker v. Carr (1962), which authorized courts to weigh in when district maps featured massive departures from the principle of “one person, one vote.” With the Court declining to serve as democratic guardrail, Crawford and Rucho are paradigmatic examples of weak-form abusive judicial review. ¶ Contrast the Court’s broad posture of judicial restraint in those cases with its aggressive interference with the 2002 McCain-Feingold Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. In Citizens United v. FEC (2010), the Court held that for-profit corporations have a First Amendment right to spend unlimited sums advocating the election or defeat of political candidates, thereby invalidating a central provision of the most significant federal campaign finance law since the Watergate era. Citizens United is the most notable in a long string of Roberts Court decisions invalidating campaign finance regulations, with the Court’s most conservative justices repeatedly holding that state and federal legislative institutions lack authority to limit election spending.15 In Shelby County v. Holder (2013), the Court gutted a central provision of the Voting Rights Act, holding that Congress had unconstitutionally required certain state and local jurisdictions to get federal approval for all changes to their election laws. Technically, Roberts’s opinion for the Court only invalidated the formula that determined which state and local jurisdictions were required to seek such federal “pre-clearance,” but both his majority opinion and a concurrence from Justice Thomas suggested that even with a revised coverage formula, the Court’s conservative majority would view such a requirement as an unconstitutional intrusion on state sovereignty. The decision unleashed a wave of new state restrictions on voting rights—with Republican legislatures and executives enacting voter ID laws, purging voter rolls, and closing polling sites—that previously would have required federal pre-clearance (Rocco in this volume). ¶ As these examples make clear, the current Court’s relevance for democratic erosion is twofold. First, it has significantly scaled back its role as an institutional check against partisan attempts to undermine fair democratic procedures. It is not yet clear that it has abandoned this role altogether, but it is fair to say that its performance is not currently reliable. Indeed, early reports from the Bright Lines Project have shown that “Judiciary can limit executive” and “Judicial independence” are among the democratic norms and institutions on which both expert and mass public confidence dropped most sharply during the Trump era (Carey, et al. 2019). Consider the Court’s response to legal disputes regarding vote counting in the 2020 presidential election. Once it was clear that Joe Biden had won a decisive victory, the Court dismissed multiple frivolous lawsuits seeking to reverse the results.16 But in the weeks leading up to the election, four conservative justices had signaled that they were prepared to give a sympathetic ear to Trump campaign arguments that could have reversed an election defeat if the outcome were close.17 Justice Barrett was not yet on the Court when those disputes were heard, and there is good reason to worry that she would have provided a fifth vote in such a scenario.18¶ Second, the Court has proven willing on key occasions to thwart legislative attempts to enhance fair democratic procedures.19 A variety of signs indicate that this latter effort has not yet run its course. In the campaign finance context, for example, Justices Thomas and Alito have set their sights on disclosure requirements, and Senate Majority Leader McConnell echoed their arguments in a January 2019 op-ed.20 On the gerrymandering front, reform advocates have used the ballot initiative process in several states to transfer redistricting authority from partisan state legislatures to non-partisan commissions. The Supreme Court upheld such an initiative from Arizona in 2015, but it did so by a vote of 5-4, with Roberts, Thomas, and Alito (along with Scalia) in dissent. 21 If any two of Trump’s three nominees agree with them, they now have the votes to hold that neither judges nor voters may take districting authority away from partisan legislators. Roberts’s dissenting opinion in the Arizona case suggests that this same judicial coalition may invalidate any congressional attempt to mandate non-partisan redistricting as well (Keck 2019b). ¶ In sum, even before the Trump era, the Roberts Court was sometimes willing to actively deploy judicial power to undermine core features of electoral democracy. President Trump’s three appointments have shifted the Court’s median justice substantially to the right—both in general and on voting rights in particular. As such, Democratic advocates of democracy reform have reason for concern that when they next recapture Congress and the White House, their Republican opponents will have retired into the judiciary as a stronghold. In this context, any comprehensive program of democratic preservation and renewal in the 2020s will need to grapple with the issue of court reform (Jones 2020). ¶ Conclusion: Reestablishing the Court’s Role as Democratic Guardrail¶ Calls for Court reform are a recurring feature of U.S. history. They have repeatedly been prompted by controversial actions taken by the justices themselves and by the partisan coalitions with which they are allied. Remarkably, contemporary Republican elites—acting across all three branches of the federal government—seem poised to provoke such calls in nearly every way that they have been provoked in the past. When Biden is sworn in as President in January 2021, he will find himself facing a Court that has been illegitimately packed by the opposition party on its way out of power; that stands opposed to majoritarian, multi-racial democracy; and that is committed to a constitutional vision under which much of the platform on which Biden was elected is constitutionally suspect. If history is any guide, Court reform will remain on the table until President Biden’s political coalition collapses or Chief Justice Roberts steers a non-obstructionist path. If neither of those paths unfold, serious discussion of Court reform is virtually inevitable. ¶ In this concluding section, then, I highlight some key lessons from our constitutional history regarding how to pursue such reforms in ways that are most beneficial for—and least risky to—democratic health. On my reading of the relevant history, some instances of attempted Court-packing contributed to democratic erosion in the United States, while others operated, on balance, to promote democratic preservation and renewal. Indeed, it seems to me incontrovertible that court-packing can be undertaken in ways that both hinder and foster democratic governance. If and when small-d democrats regain control of Hungary, Turkey, or Venezuela, would any decisions on their part to alter the size or structure of their judicial institutions be best understood as undue assaults on democratic norms? Surely we would need to know additional contextual details before reaching that judgment. As Joseph Fishkin and David Pozen have noted, “all acts of constitutional hardball create systemic risks, . . . but specific acts may be justified for a variety of contextual normative reasons; sound political judgment might even require that certain types of hardball be played in certain situations” (2018: 925; see also Bateman in this volume; Tushnet 2020). ¶ In the ongoing debates about how best to respond to processes of democratic erosion once they have been diagnosed, Levitsky and Ziblatt have famously called on opposition party elites to exercise forbearance, resisting the urge to respond to the authoritarian leader's normbreaking with more norm-breaking of their own. But such forbearance strategies may not be viable when facing incumbents—including judicial incumbents—who are deliberately tilting the playing field. In such circumstances, some sort of hardball opposition may be more effective at protecting and renewing democracy, particularly if small-d democracy advocates deploy such tactics in pursuit not just of their own narrow partisan interests but also pro-democratic reforms that promise to break the cycle of tit-for-tat escalation (Bateman in this volume; Pozen 2019). ¶ If systemic threats sometimes justify constitutional hardball, then scholars of democratic erosion and resilience are in good position to help policymakers reflect on how such tactics can be deployed in maximally legitimate fashion. One issue here is timing—i.e., how to know when we have reached the point where hardball tactics are merited. With regard to Court expansion, both its normative legitimacy and its political viability are likely to increase if and when the Roberts Court acts as a partisan roadblock to a Democratic administration. If the conservative justices refrain from doing so, they may be able to forestall Court reform. But the historical pattern suggests that emergence of an obstructionist Court is likely, at which point Democratic Court reformers will be emboldened. I have argued that judicial obstruction of legislative expansions of voting rights (and related democracy reforms) would provide particularly weighty justification for Court reform. In theory, the threat of such judicial contributions to democratic erosion might justify preemptive action—e.g., expanding the Court before it eviscerates a new voting rights act—but in practice, such preemptive action would require substantially greater political investment. Convincing the American public that Court packing is called for would be a tall order on any occasion, but it is more likely to succeed once the Court has begun actively obstructing a broadly popular policy agenda. ¶ In addition to the question of when to resort to hardball tactics, reformers should reflect on how to do so in ways that minimize the threat of tit-for-tat escalation. Here, one’s prescription for reform is likely to depend on one’s diagnosis of the systemic democratic defects in which the Court plays a role. If the chief threat to U.S. democracy is partisan polarization, then the cure is likely to involve institutional changes designed to empower centrists of both parties and to weaken their extremist flanks. If the diagnosis is partisan degradation rather than polarization— i.e., if the key defects facing American democracy are rooted not in a bipartisan refusal to compromise, but in one party’s abandonment of the rules of the game—then the prescription would be different. Rather than promoting bipartisanship, the cure would involve institutional changes that weaken the structural pro-GOP biases in our electoral and policy-making systems, thereby disrupting the party’s playbook for maintaining its hold on power without offering a platform that appeals to popular majorities (Bateman in this volume). ¶ To the extent possible, the goal of Court reform should be reestablishing the Court’s role as democratic guardrail, not reestablishing its role as Democratic agent. Given that the reforms would be enacted by partisan legislators, some consideration of partisan payoffs is inevitable, but scholars of democratic erosion and resilience can help call attention to particular reforms that are most beneficial for (or least risky to) democratic health. On this front, Pozen (2019) has called for greater consideration of “anti-hardball” reforms, by which he means institutional changes that reduce the likelihood of constitutional hardball being played by either side moving forward. For example, when a new state legislative majority comes to power, they could respond to a prior pattern of partisan gerrymandering by creating a non-partisan redistricting commission rather than deploying a new partisan gerrymander of their own. The dilemma is that the existing gerrymandered districts may prevent a new state legislative majority from coming to power, or that a captured court might prevent the new majority from altering the redistricting procedures. ¶ With regard to Court reform, anti-hardball measures might include reducing the length of Supreme Court terms and regularizing the occurrence of Supreme Court vacancies, changes that would lower the stakes of any given nomination fight. Scholars were calling for such reforms long before Trump’s election, and good government reformers have continued to advocate them (Cramton and Carrington 2005; Cramton 2007; Galston, et al. 2019). The dilemma is that most such reforms would have to survive judicial review by the existing Court. ¶ If the key defect ailing American democracy is partisan degradation rather than polarization, then even anti-hardball reforms that have in the past drawn bipartisan support may require hardball tactics to enact (Pozen 2019). In other words, successful Court reform may require combining good government improvements to judicial selection and tenure rules with hardball efforts to wrest judicial institutions away from the anti-system party’s control. The institutional design choices are complex, and I close with one recent proposal that illustrates the challenges. ¶ In September 2020, less than two weeks after Justice Ginsburg’s death, Representative Ro Khanna introduced legislation that would authorize the president to nominate a Supreme Court justice every two years, during the first and third years of each four-year presidential term. Once confirmed by the Senate, each justice would serve an 18-year, non-renewable term, after which she would rotate off of active duty on the Supreme Court. The bill would eventually produce a stable Court membership of nine, but the justices sitting at the time of enactment would be grandfathered, retaining their life terms, thereby producing the possibility of a Court larger than nine until all of those sitting justices have concluded their service. 22 When the basic structure of Rep. Khanna’s reform bill was first floated by advocates in 2019, conservatives held a five-to-four majority on the Court (Schwartz 2019). In that context, the combination of temporary Court expansion with permanent improvements to judicial selection and tenure rules may have seemed a workable marriage of hardball and anti-hardball reforms. With Justice Barrett having expanded the conservative majority to six justices, the horns of the dilemma have sharpened. The Khanna bill is one of a variety of anti-hardball reforms that would ameliorate the partisan degradation of the federal courts, but if those reforms cannot survive judicial review by the current Court, then it will take some form of hardball tactics to achieve them. That this dilemma faces Court reform advocates should not be surprising, as it is the same dilemma facing democracy reform more broadly. Solving it will be the central challenge of the post-Trump era in U.S. politics. ¶ Democracy doesn’t solve war---best models. Campbell et al. 18, *Doctoral Candidate in Political Science, Ohio State University. Carter Phillips and Sue Henry Associate Professor of Political Science at the Ohio State University. *Associate Professor of Political Science, Pennsylvania State University. (*Benjamin W., Skyler J. Cranmer, *Bruce A. Desmarais, September 13, 2018, “Triangulating War: Network Structure and the Democratic Peace”, Cornell University, Accessible at: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1809.04141.pdf) Conclusion The dyadic understanding of the democratic peace has become ubiquitous in International Relations. By looking beyond simple dyadic analysis, accounting for the embededness of states in a much more complex network, we found the democratic peace may not be as robust as previously thought. Our results demonstrate that after accounting for the tendency for like-regime states with common enemies not to fight one another, the effect of the democratic peace not only vanishes, but jointly democratic dyads seem to be more conflict prone than mixed dyads. These results are consistent across operationalizations of the outcome variable, our triadic closure predictor, measurements of joint democracy, and a variety of other factors. We believe this explanation for the democratic peace is not a mechanism for understanding the democratic peace, but instead, an alternative. What we have shown here is that conflict between democracies indeed exists and the peaceful relations occasionally found are not necessarily a function of the affinity of democratic states, or intrinsic attributes of democratic states, but instead, a function of the strategic inefficiencies of fighting a state with a shared enemy. While regime type may influence the interests of states, we find that it does not directly influence the probability that any two states fight one another. There are three major implications to our research. First, scholars should be hesitant to consider dyadic conflict in isolation, as there are network dependencies informing whether a state engages or joins a MID. Second, preferences operating in addition to network interdependencies and collaboration explain much of the democratic peace. Third, when studying conflict, scholars and practitioners should consider the cost structure of collaboration, and how these dynamics inform not only conflict initiation, but conflict escalation. Particularly interesting is that the theoretical mechanism at work here is dramatically simpler than any of the established justifications for the democratic peace. We do not rely on arguments about institutions or norms, but just the simple and intuitive proposition that it does not make much sense for two states fighting a third to also fight each other. What the existing literature seems to have missed, usually theoretically and almost always empirically, is that dyadic conflicts do not occur in isolation, but in the context of a complex network of relations.
Democracy can’t resolve violence John Schwarzmantel (Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of Leeds, Programme Director of the MA in Democratic Studies and, at the moment, Director of the Centre for Democratisation Studies) April 2010 “Democracy and violence: a theoretical overview” Democratization Vol. 17, No. 2 EBSCO Clearly this democratic exclusion of violence is an ideal, not a reality. It rests on various presuppositions that are unlikely to be fulfilled in the real world. First, it relies on the assumption that all interests and perspectives are in fact taken into account in the political system in question, and that therefore no person or group will feel the need to have recourse to violence outside established constitutional channels in order to make their voice heard. Second, the implication is that all political actors accept the premises that violence degrades the status of the human actor and that it is possible and desirable to resolve conflict through democracy, and that this is ethically superior to means of violent conflict. If someone believes that there is something inherently ennobling about violence, or that their own goal is an ‘all or nothing’ one on which there can be no compromise, or that the possible interlocutors in the democratic dialogue are not worthy of respect or of being listened to, then these considerations will make the democratic aspiration to exclude violence an impossible one to realise in practice. Finally, the presentation here of the opposition between democracy as rational and violence as irrational is open to the objection that the recourse to violence can be a perfectly rational strategy, designed to achieve political goals (including democratic ones) by means of violence: ‘they (terrorists) tend often to act according to thinking which is no less strategic or rational than that of other actors in various conflicts’.11 This is certainly true, since violence can be exercised in rational and strategic ways in order to achieve the inclusion offered, but not realized, by the democratic state. Yet the ultimate goal of a properly inclusive democratic society remains, so it is argued here, one of substituting the processes of debate and compromise for the physical confrontation of force between groups and individuals who see no possibility of democratic dialogue. AT Inequality Growth is surging. Halloran ’9-14 Michael; 2021; M.B.A. from Carnegie Mellon University, former aerospace research engineer, Equity Strategist; Janney, “Despite Potential Headwinds, Key Labor Market Indicators Bode Well for the Economy,” https://www.janney.com/latest-articles-commentary/all-insights/insights/2021/09/14/despite-potential-headwinds-key-labor-market-indicators-bode-well-for-the-economy However, we remain encouraged by the recovery that has been unfolding since the economy began reopening. We continue to see improvement in important cyclical sectors of the economy while consumers are historically healthy and still have pent-up demand. Business confidence has rebounded with strong corporate profits that should support further capital spending and hiring (there are now more job openings than there are unemployed people by a record amount). We expect to see further improvement in the international backdrop, supported by unprecedented fiscal and monetary stimulus and accelerating rates of vaccination. Although the impact of the Delta wave is still being felt, recent evidence confirms the effectiveness of vaccines in limiting deaths and hospitalizations. With the pace of vaccination now picking up in the areas most impacted by this wave—Asia and Australia—the case for fading headwinds leading to improving economic growth later this year remains positive. The signals from financial markets themselves remain positive. Despite consolidating last week, stocks remain near record highs while the 10-year Treasury remains well above the lows of earlier this summer when concerns about Delta first emerged. These factors support our view of a durable economic recovery from the pandemic that should continue supporting stock prices. A healthy labor market is a critical element for a sustainable recovery that supports profit growth and last week’s news from the labor market remains COVID creates an economic brink---recovery is strong now because of effective monetary policy, but we’ve hit the zero-lower bound. Christopher Rugaber 21. Associated Press. “Federal Reserve keeps key interest rate near zero, signals COVID-19 economic risks receding.” https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-fed-interest-rates-economy-20210428-bumyc3ynpza6ri4ygsntmdsmya-story.html. WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve is keeping its ultra-low interest rate policies in place, a sign that it wants to see more evidence of a strengthening economic recovery before it would consider easing its support. In a statement Wednesday, the Fed expressed a brighter outlook, saying the economy has improved along with the job market. And while the policymakers noted that inflation has risen, they ascribed the increase to temporary factors. The Fed also signaled its belief that the pandemic’s threat to the economy has diminished, a significant point given Chair Jerome Powell’s long-stated view that the recovery depends on the virus being brought under control. Last month, the Fed had cautioned that the virus posed “considerable risks to the economic outlook.” On Wednesday, it said only that “risks to the economic outlook remain” because of the pandemic. The central bank left its benchmark short-term rate near zero, where it’s been since the pandemic erupted nearly a year ago, to help keep loan rates down to encourage borrowing and spending. It also said in a statement after its latest policy meeting that it would keep buying $120 billion in bonds each month to try to keep longer-term borrowing rates low. The U.S. economy has been posting unexpectedly strong gains in recent weeks, with barometers of hiring, spending and manufacturing all surging. Most economists say they detect the early stages of what could be a robust and sustained recovery, with coronavirus case counts declining, vaccinations rising and Americans spending their stimulus-boosted savings. Strikes hurt critical core industries that is necessary for economic growth John McElroy, 2019, Strikes Hurt Everybody.Wards Auto Industry News, October 25, https://www.wardsauto.com/ideaxchange/strikes-hurt-everybody This creates a poisonous relationship between the company and its workforce. Many GM hourly workers don’t identify as GM employees. They identify as UAW members. And they see the union as the source of their jobs, not the company. It’s an unhealthy dynamic that puts GM at a disadvantage to non-union automakers in the U.S. like Honda and Toyota, where workers take pride in the company they work for and the products they make. Attacking the company in the media also drives away customers. Who wants to buy a shiny new car from a company that’s accused of underpaying its workers and treating them unfairly? Data from the Center for Automotive Research (CAR) in Ann Arbor, MI, show that GM loses market share during strikes and never gets it back. GM lost two percentage points during the 1998 strike, which in today’s market would represent a loss of 340,000 sales. Because GM reports sales on a quarterly basis we’ll only find out at the end of December if it lost market share from this strike. UAW members say one of their greatest concerns is job security. But causing a company to lose market share is a sure-fire path to more plant closings and layoffs. Even so, unions are incredibly important for boosting wages and benefits for working-class people. GM’s UAW-represented workers earn considerably more than their non-union counterparts, about $26,000 more per worker, per year, in total compensation. Without a union they never would have achieved that. Strikes are a powerful weapon for unions. They usually are the only way they can get management to accede to their demands. If not for the power of collective bargaining and the threat of a strike, management would largely ignore union demands. If you took away that threat, management would pay its workers peanuts. Just ask the Mexican line workers who are paid $1.50 an hour to make $50,000 BMWs. But strikes don’t just hurt the people walking the picket lines or the company they’re striking against. They hurt suppliers, car dealers and the communities located near the plants. The Anderson Economic Group estimates that 75,000 workers at supplier companies were temporarily laid off because of the GM strike. Unlike UAW picketers, those supplier workers won’t get any strike pay or an $11,000 contract signing bonus. No, most of them lost close to a month’s worth of wages, which must be financially devastating for them. GM’s suppliers also lost a lot of money. So now they’re cutting budgets and delaying capital investments to make up for the lost revenue, which is a further drag on the economy. According to CAR, the communities and states where GM’s plants are located collectively lost a couple of hundred million dollars in payroll and tax revenue. Some economists warn that if the strike were prolonged it could knock the state of Michigan – home to GM and the UAW – into a recession. That prompted the governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer, to call GM CEO Mary Barra and UAW leaders and urge them to settle as fast as possible. So, while the UAW managed to get a nice raise for its members, the strike left a path of destruction in its wake. That’s not fair to the innocent bystanders who will never regain what they lost. John McElroyI’m not sure how this will ever be resolved. I understand the need for collective bargaining and the threat of a strike. But there’s got to be a better way to get workers a raise without torching the countryside. Strikes create a stigmatization effect over labor and consumption that devastates the economy Tenza 20, Mlungisi. "The effects of violent strikes on the economy of a developing country: a case of South Africa." Obiter 41.3 (2020): 519-537. (Senior Lecturer, University of KwaZulu-Natal) When South Africa obtained democracy in 1994, there was a dream of a better country with a new vision for industrial relations.5 However, the number of violent strikes that have bedevilled this country in recent years seems to have shattered-down the aspirations of a better South Africa. South Africa recorded 114 strikes in 2013 and 88 strikes in 2014, which cost the country about R6.1 billion according to the Department of Labour.6 The impact of these strikes has been hugely felt by the mining sector, particularly the platinum industry. The biggest strike took place in the platinum sector where about 70 000 mineworkers’ downed tools for better wages. Three major platinum producers (Impala, Anglo American and Lonmin Platinum Mines) were affected. The strike started on 23 January 2014 and ended on 25 June 2014. Business Day reported that “the five-month-long strike in the platinum sector pushed the economy to the brink of recession”. 7 This strike was closely followed by a four-week strike in the metal and engineering sector. All these strikes (and those not mentioned here) were characterised with violence accompanied by damage to property, intimidation, assault and sometimes the killing of people. Statistics from the metal and engineering sector showed that about 246 cases of intimidation were reported, 50 violent incidents occurred, and 85 cases of vandalism were recorded.8 Large-scale unemployment, soaring poverty levels and the dramatic income inequality that characterise the South African labour market provide a broad explanation for strike violence.9 While participating in a strike, workers’ stress levels leave them feeling frustrated at their seeming powerlessness, which in turn provokes further violent behaviour.10 These strikes are not only violent but take long to resolve. Generally, a lengthy strike has a negative effect on employment, reduces business confidence and increases the risk of economic stagflation. In addition, such strikes have a major setback on the growth of the economy and investment opportunities. It is common knowledge that consumer spending is directly linked to economic growth. At the same time, if the economy is not showing signs of growth, employment opportunities are shed, and poverty becomes the end result. The economy of South Africa is in need of rapid growth to enable it to deal with the high levels of unemployment and resultant poverty. One of the measures that may boost the country’s economic growth is by attracting potential investors to invest in the country. However, this might be difficult as investors would want to invest in a country where there is a likelihood of getting returns for their investments. The wish of getting returns for investment may not materialise if the labour environment is not fertile for such investments as a result of, for example, unstable labour relations. Therefore, investors may be reluctant to invest where there is an unstable or fragile labour relations environment. 3 THE COMMISSION OF VIOLENCE DURING A STRIKE AND CONSEQUENCES The Constitution guarantees every worker the right to join a trade union, participate in the activities and programmes of a trade union, and to strike. 11 The Constitution grants these rights to a “worker” as an individual.12 However, the right to strike and any other conduct in contemplation or furtherance of a strike such as a picket13 can only be exercised by workers acting collectively.14 The right to strike and participation in the activities of a trade union were given more effect through the enactment of the Labour Relations Act 66 of 199515 (LRA). The main purpose of the LRA is to “advance economic development, social justice, labour peace and the democratisation of the workplace”. 16 The advancement of social justice means that the exercise of the right to strike must advance the interests of workers and at the same time workers must refrain from any conduct that can affect those who are not on strike as well members of society. Even though the right to strike and the right to participate in the activities of a trade union that often flow from a strike17 are guaranteed in the Constitution and specifically regulated by the LRA, it sometimes happens that the right to strike is exercised for purposes not intended by the Constitution and the LRA, generally. 18 For example, it was not the intention of the Constitutional Assembly and the legislature that violence should be used during strikes or pickets. As the Constitution provides, pickets are meant to be peaceful. 19 Contrary to section 17 of the Constitution, the conduct of workers participating in a strike or picket has changed in recent years with workers trying to emphasise their grievances by causing disharmony and chaos in public. A media report by the South African Institute of Race Relations pointed out that between the years 1999 and 2012 there were 181 strike-related deaths, 313 injuries and 3,058 people were arrested for public violence associated with strikes.20 The question is whether employers succumb easily to workers’ demands if a strike is accompanied by violence? In response to this question, one worker remarked as follows: “There is no sweet strike, there is no Christian strike … A strike is a strike. You want to get back what belongs to you ... you won’t win a strike with a Bible. You do not wear high heels and carry an umbrella and say ‘1992 was under apartheid, 2007 is under ANC’. You won’t win a strike like that.” 21 The use of violence during industrial action affects not only the strikers or picketers, the employer and his or her business but it also affects innocent members of the public, non-striking employees, the environment and the economy at large. In addition, striking workers visit non-striking workers’ homes, often at night, threaten them and in some cases, assault or even murder workers who are acting as replacement labour. 22 This points to the fact that for many workers and their families’ living conditions remain unsafe and vulnerable to damage due to violence. In Security Services Employers Organisation v SA Transport and Allied Workers Union (SATAWU),23 it was reported that about 20 people were thrown out of moving trains in the Gauteng province; most of them were security guards who were not on strike and who were believed to be targeted by their striking colleagues. Two of them died, while others were admitted to hospitals with serious injuries.24 In SA Chemical Catering and Allied Workers Union v Check One (Pty) Ltd,25 striking employees were carrying various weapons ranging from sticks, pipes, planks and bottles. One of the strikers Mr Nqoko was alleged to have threatened to cut the throats of those employees who had been brought from other branches of the employer’s business to help in the branch where employees were on strike. Such conduct was held not to be in line with good conduct of striking.26 These examples from case law show that South Africa is facing a problem that is affecting not only the industrial relations’ sector but also the economy at large. For example, in 2012, during a strike by workers employed by Lonmin in Marikana, the then-new union Association of Mine and Construction Workers Union (AMCU) wanted to exert its presence after it appeared that many workers were not happy with the way the majority union, National Union of Mine Workers (NUM), handled negotiations with the employer (Lonmin Mine). AMCU went on an unprotected strike which was violent and resulted in the loss of lives, damage to property and negative economic consequences including a weakened currency, reduced global investment, declining productivity, and increase unemployment in the affected sectors.27 Further, the unreasonably long time it takes for strikes to get resolved in the Republic has a negative effect on the business of the employer, the economy and employment. 3 1 Effects of violent and long strikes on the economy Generally, South Africa’s economy is on a downward scale. First, it fails to create employment opportunities for its people. The recent statistics on unemployment levels indicate that unemployment has increased from 26.5 to 27.2. 28 The most prominent strike which nearly brought the platinum industries to its knees was the strike convened by AMCU in 2014. The strike started on 23 January 2014 and ended on 24 June 2014. It affected the three big platinum producers in the Republic, which are the Anglo American Platinum, Lonmin Plc and Impala Platinum. It was the longest strike since the dawn of democracy in 1994. As a result of this strike, the platinum industries lost billions of rands.29 According to the report by Economic Research Southern Africa, the platinum group metals industry is South Africa’s second-largest export earner behind gold and contributes just over 2 of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).30 The overall metal ores in the mining industry which include platinum sells about 70 of its output to the export market while sales to local manufacturers of basic metals, fabricated metal products and various other metal equipment and machinery make up to 20. 31 The research indicates that the overall impact of the strike in 2014 was driven by a reduction in productive capital in the mining sector, accompanied by a decrease in labour available to the economy. This resulted in a sharp increase in the price of the output by 5.8 with a GDP declined by 0.72 and 0.78.32
11/7/21
NovDec - Violence PIC
Tournament: Glenbrooks | Round: 1 | Opponent: Adam Mimou | Judge: Julian Kuffour 2: Violence PIC Counterplan: China ought to guarantee the right to strike except for violent strike tactics. Strikes can be violent, South Africa proves. This link turns the AC by harming the affected sector and decking the economy. Tenzam ’20 - Mlungisi Tenzam LLB LLM LLD Senior Lecturer, University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2020, The effects of violent strikes on the economy of a developing country: a case of South Africa, http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttextandpid=S1682-58532020000300004 The Constitution guarantees every worker the right to join a trade union, participate in the activities and programmes of a trade union, and to strike.11The Constitution grants these rights to a "worker" as an individual.12However, the right to strike and any other conduct in contemplation or furtherance of a strike such as a picket13 can only be exercised by workers acting collectively.14¶ The right to strike and participation in the activities of a trade union were given more effect through the enactment of the Labour Relations Act 66 of 199515 (LRA). The main purpose of the LRA is to "advance economic development, social justice, labour peace and the democratisation of the workplace".16 The advancement of social justice means that the exercise of the right to strike must advance the interests of workers and at the same time workers must refrain from any conduct that can affect those who are not on strike as well members of society.¶ Even though the right to strike and the right to participate in the activities of a trade union that often flow from a strike 17 are guaranteed in the Constitution and specifically regulated by the LRA, it sometimes happens that the right to strike is exercised for purposes not intended by the Constitution and the LRA, generally.18 For example, it was not the intention of the Constitutional Assembly and the legislature that violence should be used during strikes or pickets. As the Constitution provides, pickets are meant to be peaceful.19 Contrary to section 17 of the Constitution, the conduct of workers participating in a strike or picket has changed in recent years with workers trying to emphasise their grievances by causing disharmony and chaos in public. A media report by the South African Institute of Race Relations pointed out that between the years 1999 and 2012 there were 181 strike-related deaths, 313 injuries and 3,058 people were arrested for public violence associated with strikes.20 The question is whether employers succumb easily to workers' demands if a strike is accompanied by violence? In response to this question, one worker remarked as follows:¶ "There is no sweet strike, there is no Christian strike ... A strike is a strike. You want to get back what belongs to you ... you won't win a strike with a Bible. You do not wear high heels and carry an umbrella and say '1992 was under apartheid, 2007 is under ANC'. You won't win a strike like that."21¶ The use of violence during industrial action affects not only the strikers or picketers, the employer and his or her business but it also affects innocent members of the public, non-striking employees, the environment and the economy at large. In addition, striking workers visit non-striking workers' homes, often at night, threaten them and in some cases, assault or even murder workers who are acting as replacement labour.22 This points to the fact that for many workers and their families' living conditions remain unsafe and vulnerable to damage due to violence. In Security Services Employers Organisation v SA Transport and Allied Workers Union (SATAWU),23 it was reported that about 20 people were thrown out of moving trains in the Gauteng province; most of them were security guards who were not on strike and who were believed to be targeted by their striking colleagues. Two of them died, while others were admitted to hospitals with serious injuries.24In SA Chemical Catering and Allied Workers Union v Check One (Pty) Ltd,25striking employees were carrying various weapons ranging from sticks, pipes, planks and bottles. One of the strikers Mr Nqoko was alleged to have threatened to cut the throats of those employees who had been brought from other branches of the employer's business to help in the branch where employees were on strike. Such conduct was held not to be in line with good conduct of striking.26¶ These examples from case law show that South Africa is facing a problem that is affecting not only the industrial relations' sector but also the economy at large. For example, in 2012, during a strike by workers employed by Lonmin in Marikana, the then-new union Association of Mine and Construction Workers Union (AMCU) wanted to exert its presence after it appeared that many workers were not happy with the way the majority union, National Union of Mine Workers (NUM), handled negotiations with the employer (Lonmin Mine). AMCU went on an unprotected strike which was violent and resulted in the loss of lives, damage to property and negative economic consequences including a weakened currency, reduced global investment27, declining productivity, and increase unemployment in the affected sectors.27Further, the unreasonably long time it takes for strikes to get resolved in the Republic has a negative effect on the business of the employer, the economy and employment.
11/21/21
SepOct - Funding CP
Tournament: Meadows Invitational | Round: 1 | Opponent: Maxwell Lee | Judge: Jared Croitoru Funding CP Counterplan: High-income country governments, backed by the United States, should provide all necessary funding to purchase COVID-19 vaccines developed by drug companies at any reasonable cost and distribute them as requested world-wide. Lindsay 6/11 - Brink Lindsay, Brookings, 6-11, 2021, Why intellectual property and pandemics don’t mix, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2021/06/03/why-intellectual-property-and-pandemics-dont-mix/ Waiving patent protections is certainly no panacea. What is needed most urgently is a massive drive of technology transfer, capacity expansion, and supply line coordination to bring vaccine supply in line with global demand. Dispensing with patents in no way obviates the need for governments to fund and oversee this effort.¶ Although focusing on these immediate constraints is vital, we cannot confine our attention to the short term. First of all, the COVID-19 pandemic is far from over. Although Americans can now see the light at the end of the tunnel thanks to the rapid rollout of vaccines, most of the world isn’t so lucky. The virus is¶ currently raging in India and throughout South America, overwhelming health care systems and inflicting suffering and loss on a horrific scale. And consider the fact that Australia, which has been successful in suppressing the virus, recently announced it was sticking to plans to keep its borders closed until mid-2022. Criticisms of the TRIPS waiver that focus only on the next few months are therefore short-sighted: this pandemic could well drag on long enough for elimination of patent restrictions to enable new vaccine producers to make a positive difference.¶ Furthermore, and probably even more important, this is almost certainly not the last pandemic we will face. Urbanization, the spread of factory-farming methods, and globalization all combine to increase the odds that a new virus will make the jump from animals to humans and then spread rapidly around the world. Prior to the current pandemic, the 21st century already saw outbreaks of SARS, H1N1, MERS, and Ebola. Everything we do and learn in the current crisis should be viewed from the perspective of getting ready for next time.¶ The Nature of the Patent Bargain¶ When we take the longer view, we can see a fundamental mismatch between the policy design of intellectual property protection and the policy requirements of effective pandemic response. Although patent law, properly restrained, constitutes one important element of a well-designed national innovation system, the way it goes about encouraging technological progress is singularly ill-suited to the emergency conditions of a pandemic or other public health crisis. Securing a TRIPS waiver for COVID-19 vaccines and treatments would thus establish a salutary precedent that, in emergencies of this kind, governments should employ other, more direct means to incentivize the development of new drugs.¶ Here is the basic bargain offered by patent law: encourage the creation of useful new ideas for the long run by slowing the diffusion of useful new ideas in the short run. The second half of the bargain, the half that imposes costs on society, comes from the temporary exclusive rights, or monopoly privileges, that a patent holder enjoys. Under U.S. patent law, for a period of 20 years nobody else can manufacture or sell the patented product without the permission of the patent holder. This allows the patent holder to block competitors from the market, or extract licensing fees before allowing them to enter, and consequently charge above-market prices to its customers. Patent rights thus slow the diffusion of a new invention by restricting output and raising prices.¶ The imposition of these short-run costs, however, can bring net long-term benefits by sharpening the incentives to invent new products. In the absence of patent protection, the prospect of easy imitation by later market entrants can deter would-be innovators from incurring the up-front fixed costs of research and development. But with a guaranteed period of market exclusivity, inventors can proceed with greater confidence that they will be able to recoup their investment.¶ For the tradeoff between costs and benefits to come out positive on net, patent law must strike the right balance. Exclusive rights should be valuable enough to encourage greater innovation, but not so easily granted or extensive in scope or term that this encouragement is outweighed by output restrictions on the patented product and discouragement of downstream innovations dependent on access to the patented technology.¶ Unfortunately, the U.S. patent system at present is out of balance. Over the past few decades, the expansion of patentability to include software and business methods as well as a general relaxation of patenting requirements have led to wildly excessive growth in these temporary monopolies: the number of patents granted annually has¶ skyrocketed roughly fivefold since the early 1980s. One unfortunate result has been the rise of “non-practicing entities,” better known as patent trolls: firms that make nothing themselves but buy up patent portfolios and monetize them through aggressive litigation. As a result, a law that is supposed to encourage innovation has turned into a¶ legal minefield for many would-be innovators. In the pharmaceutical industry, firms have abused the law by piling up patents for trivial, therapeutically irrelevant “innovations” that allow them to¶ extend their monopolies and keep raising prices long beyond the statutorily contemplated 20 years.¶ Patent law is creating these unintended consequences because policymakers have been caught in an ideological fog that¶ conflates “intellectual property” with actual property rights over physical objects. Enveloped in that fog, they regard any attempts to put limits on patent monopolies as attacks on private property and view ongoing expansions of patent privileges as necessary to keep innovation from grinding to a halt. In fact, patent law is a tool of regulatory policy with the usual tradeoffs between costs and benefits; like all tools, it can be misused, and as with all tools there are some jobs for which other tools are better suited. A well-designed patent system, in which benefits are maximized and costs kept to a minimum, is just one of various policy options that governments can employ to stimulate technological advance—including tax credits for RandD, prizes for targeted inventions, and direct government support.¶ Public Health Emergencies and Direct Government Support¶ For pandemics and other public health emergencies, patents’ mix of costs and benefits is misaligned with what is needed for an effective policy response. The basic patent bargain, even when well struck, is to pay for more innovation down the road with slower diffusion of innovation today. In the context of a pandemic, that bargain is a bad one and should be rejected entirely. Here the imperative is to accelerate the diffusion of vaccines and other treatments, not slow it down. Giving drug companies the power to hold things up by blocking competitors and raising prices pushes in the completely wrong direction. What approach to encouraging innovation should we take instead? How do we incentivize drug makers to undertake the hefty RandD costs to develop new vaccines without giving them exclusive rights over their production and sale? The most effective approach during a public health crisis is direct government support: public funding of RandD, advance purchase commitments by the government to buy large numbers of doses at set prices, and other, related payouts. And when we pay drug makers, we should not hesitate to pay generously, even extravagantly: we want to offer drug companies big profits so that they prioritize this work above everything else, and so that they are ready and eager to come to the rescue again the next time there’s a crisis. It was direct support via Operation Warp Speed that made possible the astonishingly rapid development of COVID-19 vaccines and then facilitated a relatively rapid rollout of vaccine distribution (relative, that is, to most of the rest of the world). And it’s worth noting that a major reason for the faster rollout here and in the United Kingdom compared to the European Union was the latter’s misguided penny-pinching. The EU bargained hard with firms to keep vaccine prices low, and as a result their citizens ended up in the back of the queue as various supply line kinks were being ironed out. This is particularly ironic since the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was developed in Germany. As this fact underscores, the chief advantage of direct support isn’t to “get tough” with drug firms and keep a lid on their profits. Instead, it is to accelerate the end of the public health emergency by making sure drug makers profit handsomely from doing the right thing. Patent law and direct support should be seen not as either-or alternatives but as complements that apply different incentives to different circumstances and time horizons. Patent law provides a decentralized system for encouraging innovation. The government doesn’t presume to tell the industry which new drugs are needed; it simply incentivizes the development of whatever new drugs that pharmaceutical firms can come up with by offering them a temporary monopoly. It is important to note that patent law’s incentives offer no commercial guarantees. Yes, you can block other competitors for a number of years, but that still doesn’t ensure enough consumer demand for the new product to make it profitable. The situation is different in a pandemic. Here the government knows exactly what it wants to incentivize: the creation of vaccines to prevent the spread of a specific virus and other drugs to treat that virus. Under these circumstances, the decentralized approach isn’t good enough. There is no time to sit back and let drug makers take the initiative on their own timeline. Instead, the government needs to be more involved to incentivize specific innovations now. As recompense for letting it call the shots (pardon the pun), the government sweetens the deal for drug companies by insulating them from commercial risk. If pharmaceutical firms develop effective vaccines and therapies, the government will buy large, predetermined quantities at prices set high enough to guarantee a healthy return. For the pharmaceutical industry, it is useful to conceive of patent law as the default regime for innovation promotion. It improves pharmaceutical companies’ incentives to develop new drugs while leaving them free to decide which new drugs to pursue – and also leaving them to bear all commercial risk. In a pandemic or other emergency, however, it is appropriate to shift to the direct support regime, in which the government focuses efforts on one disease. In this regime, it is important to note, the government provides qualitatively superior incentives to those offered under patent law. Not only does it offer public funding to cover the up-front costs of drug development, but it also provides advance purchase commitments that guarantee a healthy return. It should therefore be clear that the pharmaceutical industry has no legitimate basis for objecting to a TRIPS waiver. Since, because of the public health crisis, drug makers now qualify for the superior benefits of direct government support, they no longer need the default benefits of patent support. Arguments that a TRIPS waiver would deprive drug makers of the incentives they need to keep developing new drugs, when they are presently receiving the most favorable incentives available, can be dismissed as the worst sort of special pleading. That said, it is a serious mistake to try to cast the current crisis as a morality play in which drug makers wear the black hats and the choice at hand is between private profits and public health. We would have no chance of beating this virus without the formidable organizational capabilities of the pharmaceutical industry, and providing the appropriate incentives is essential to ensure that the industry plays its necessary and vital role. It is misguided to lament that private companies are profiting in the current crisis: those profits are a drop in the bucket compared to the staggering cost of this pandemic in lives and economic damage. What matters isn’t the existence or size of the profits, but how they are earned. We have good reason to want drug makers to profit from vaccinating the world: the comparative price is minuscule, and the incentive effects are a vital safeguard of public health in the event of future crises. What we want to avoid at all costs is putting drug makers in the position where drug companies can profit from standing in the way of rapid global vaccination. That is why intellectual property rights need to be taken out of the equation. Vaccinating the world in any kind of reasonable time frame will require large-scale technology transfer to drug firms in other countries and rapid expansion of their production capacity. And looking beyond the current pandemic to the longer term, we need ample, redundant global vaccine production capacity that is widely distributed around the planet. To achieve these goals as rapidly as possible will require the active cooperation of the U.S. pharmaceutical industry, which is why the direct support model now needs to be extended. What is needed now is an Operation Warp Speed for the world, in which we make it worth current vaccine producers’ while to share their know-how broadly and ramp up global capacity. Here again, we must recognize that the choice isn’t between people on the one hand and profits on the other. Rather, the key to good pandemic response policy is ensuring that incentives are structured so that drug company profit-seeking and global public health are well aligned. That means opting out of the default, decentralized patent bargain in favor of generous but well-focused direct government support. Innovation DA The pharma industry is strong now but patents are key for continued economic growth. Batell and PhRMA 14: Batell and PhRMA {Battelle is the world’s largest nonprofit independent research and development organization, providing innovative solutions to the world’s most pressing needs through its four global businesses: Laboratory Management, National Security, Energy, Environment and Material Sciences, and Health and Life Sciences. The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) represents the country’s leading pharmaceutical research and biotechnology companies, which are devoted to inventing medicines that allow patients to live longer, healthier, and more productive lives.}, 14 – “The U.S. Biopharmaceutical Industry: Perspectives on Future Growth and The Factors That Will Drive It,” http://phrma-docs.phrma.org/sites/default/files/pdf/2014-economic-futures-report.pdf//marlborough-wr// Compared to other capital-intensive, advanced manufacturing industries in the U.S., the biopharmaceutical industry is a leader in RandD investment, IP generation, venture capital investment, and RandD employment. Policies and infrastructure that helped foster these innovative activities have allowed the U.S. to seize global leadership in biopharmaceutical RandD over the past 30 years. However, as this report details, other countries are seeking to compete with the U.S. by borrowing and building upon some of these pro-innovation policies to improve their own operating environment and become more favorable to biopharmaceutical companies making decisions about where to locate their RandD and manufacturing activities. A unique contribution of this report was the inclusion of the perspective of senior-level strategic planning executives of biopharmaceutical companies regarding what policy areas they see as most likely to impact the favorability of the U.S. business operating environment. The executives cited the following factors as having the most impact on the favorability of the operating environment and hence, potential growth of the innovative biopharmaceutical industry in the U.S.: • Coverage and payment policies that support and encourage medical innovation • A well-functioning, science-based regulatory system • Strong IP protection and enforcement in the U.S. and abroad The top sub-attribute identified as driving future biopharmaceutical industry growth in the U.S. cited by executives was a domestic IP system that provides adequate patent rights and data protection. Collectively, these factors underscore the need to reduce uncertainties and ensure adequate incentives for the lengthy, costly, and risky RandD investments necessary to develop new treatments needed by patients and society to address our most costly and challenging diseases. With more than 300,000 jobs at stake between the two scenarios, the continued growth and leadership of the U.S. innovative biopharmaceutical industry cannot be taken for granted. Continued innovation is fundamental to U.S. economic well-being and the nation’s ability to compete effectively in a globalized economy and to take advantage of the expected growth in demand for new medicines around the world. Just as other countries have drawn lessons from the growth of the U.S. biopharmaceutical sector, the U.S. needs to assess how it can improve the environment for innovation and continue to boost job creation by increasing RandD investment, fostering a robust talent pool, enhancing economic growth and sustainability, and continuing to bring new medicines to patients. COVID has kept patents and innovation strong, but continued protection is key to innovation by incentivizing biomedical research – it’s also crucial to preventing counterfeit medicines, economic collapse, and fatal diseases, which independently turns case. Macdole and Ezell 4-29: Jaci Mcdole and Stephen Ezell {Jaci McDole is a senior policy analyst covering intellectual property (IP) and innovation policy at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF). She focuses on IP and its correlations to global innovation and trade. McDole holds a double BA in Music Business and Radio-Television with a minor in Marketing, an MS in Education, and a JD with a specialization in intellectual property (Southern Illinois University Carbondale). McDole comes to ITIF from the Institute for Intellectual Property Research, an organization she co-founded to study and further robust global IP policies. Stephen Ezell is vice president, global innovation policy, at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF). He comes to ITIF from Peer Insight, an innovation research and consulting firm he cofounded in 2003 to study the practice of innovation in service industries. At Peer Insight, Ezell led the Global Service Innovation Consortium, published multiple research papers on service innovation, and researched national service innovation policies being implemented by governments worldwide. Prior to forming Peer Insight, Ezell worked in the New Service Development group at the NASDAQ Stock Market, where he spearheaded the creation of the NASDAQ Market Intelligence Desk and the NASDAQ Corporate Services Network, services for NASDAQ-listed corporations. Previously, Ezell cofounded two successful innovation ventures, the high-tech services firm Brivo Systems and Lynx Capital, a boutique investment bank. Ezell holds a B.S. from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, with an honors certificate from Georgetown’s Landegger International Business Diplomacy program.}, 21 - ("Ten Ways Ip Has Enabled Innovations That Have Helped Sustain The World Through The Pandemic," Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, 4-29-2021, https://itif.org/publications/2021/04/29/ten-ways-ip-has-enabled-innovations-have-helped-sustain-world-through)//marlborough-wr/ To better understand the role of IP in enabling solutions related to COVID-19 challenges, this report relies on 10 case studies drawn from a variety of nations, technical fields, and firm sizes. This is but a handful of the thousands of IP-enabled innovations that have sprung forth over the past year in an effort to meet the tremendous challenges brought on by COVID-19 globally. From a paramedic in Mexico to a veteran vaccine manufacturing company in India and a tech start-up in Estonia to a U.S.-based company offering workplace Internet of Things (IoT) services, small and large organizations alike are working to combat the pandemic. Some have adapted existing innovations, while others have developed novel solutions. All are working to take the world out of the pandemic and into the future. The case studies are: Bharat Biotech: Covaxin Gilead: Remdesivir LumiraDX: SARS-COV-2 Antigen POC Test Teal Bio: Teal Bio Respirator XE Ingeniería Médica: CápsulaXE Surgical Theater: Precision VR Tombot: Jennie Starship Technologies: Autonomous Delivery Robots Triax Technologies: Proximity Trace Zoom: Video Conferencing As the case studies show, IP is critical to enabling innovation. Policymakers around the world need to ensure robust IP protections are—and remain—in place if they wish their citizens to have safe and innovative solutions to health care, workplace, and societal challenges in the future. THE ROLE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY IN RandD-INTENSIVE INDUSTRIES Intangible assets, such as IP rights, comprised approximately 84 percent of the corporate value of SandP 500 companies in 2018.4 For start-ups, this means much of the capital needed to operate is directly related to IP (see Teal Bio case study for more on this). IP also plays an especially important role for RandD-intensive industries.5 To take the example of the biopharmaceutical industry, it is characterized by high-risk, time-consuming, and expensive processes including basic research, drug discovery, pre-clinical trials, three stages of human clinical trials, regulatory review, and post-approval research and safety monitoring. The drug development process spans an average of 11.5 to 15 years.6 For every 5,000 to 10,000 compounds screened on average during the basic research and drug discovery phases, approximately 250 molecular compounds, or 2.5 to 5 percent, make it to preclinical testing. Out of those 250 molecular compounds, approximately 5 make it to clinical testing. That is, 0.05 to 0.1 percent of drugs make it from basic research into clinical trials. Of those rare few which make it to clinical testing, less than 12 percent are ultimately approved for use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).7 In addition to high risks, drug development is costly, and the expenses associated with it are increasing. A 2019 report by the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions concluded that since 2010 the average cost of bringing a new drug to market increased by 67 percent.8 Numerous studies have examined the substantial cost of biopharmaceutical RandD, and most confirm investing in new drug development requires $1.7 billion to $3.2 billion up front on average.9 A 2018 study by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness found similar risks and figures for vaccines, stating, “In general, vaccine development from discovery to licensure can cost billions of dollars, can take over 10 years to complete, and has an average 94 percent chance of failure.”10 Yet, a 2010 study found that 80 percent of new drugs—that is, the less than 12 percent ultimately approved by the FDA—made less than their capitalized RandD costs.11 Another study found that only 1 percent (maybe three new drugs each year) of the most successful 10 percent of FDA approved drugs generate half of the profits of the entire drug industry.12 To say the least, biopharmaceutical RandD represents a high-stakes, long-term endeavor with precarious returns. Without IP protection, biopharmaceutical manufacturers have little incentive to take the risks necessary to engage in the RandD process because they would be unable to recoup even a fraction of the costs incurred. Diminished revenues also result in reduced investments in RandD which means less research into cancer drugs, Alzheimer cures, vaccines, and more. IP rights give life-sciences enterprises the confidence needed to undertake the difficult, risky, and expensive process of life-sciences innovation secure in the knowledge they can capture a share of the gains from their innovations, which is indispensable not only to recouping the up-front RandD costs of a given drug, but which can generate sufficient profits to enable investment in future generations of biomedical innovation and thus perpetuate the enterprises into the future.13 THE IMPORTANCE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY TO INNOVATION Although anti-IP proponents have attacked biopharmaceutical manufacturers particularly hard, the reality is all IP-protected innovations are at risk if these rights are ignored, or vitiated. Certain arguments have shown a desire for the term “COVID-19 innovations” to include everything from vaccines, therapeutics, diagnostics, and PPE to biotechnology, AI-related data, and educational materials.14 This could potentially open the floodgates to invalidate IP protection on many of the innovations highlighted in this report. However, much of the current discussion concerning IP focuses almost entirely on litigation fears or RandD incentives. Although RandD is an important aspect of IP, as previously mentioned, these discussions ignore the fact that IP protection can be—and often is—used for other purposes, including generating initial capital to create a company and begin manufacturing and, more importantly, using licensing agreements and IP to track the supply chain and ensure quality control of products. This report highlights but a handful of the thousands of IP-enabled innovations that have sprung forth over the past year in an effort to meet the tremendous challenges brought on by COVID-19 globally. In 2018, Forbes identified counterfeiting as the largest criminal enterprise in the world.15 The global struggle against counterfeit and non-regulated products, which has hit Latin America particularly hard during the pandemic, proves the need for safety and quality assurance in supply chains.16 Some communities already ravaged by COVID-19 are seeing higher mortality rates related to counterfeit vaccines, therapeutics, PPE, and cleaning and sanitizing products.17 Polish authorities discovered vials of antiwrinkle treatment labeled as COVID-19 vaccines. 18 In Mexico, fake vaccines sold for approximately $1,000 per dose.19 Chinese and South African police seized thousands of counterfeit vaccine doses from warehouses and manufacturing plants.20 Meanwhile, dozens of websites worldwide claiming to sell vaccines or be affiliated with vaccine manufacturers have been taken down.21 But the problem is not limited to biopharmaceuticals. The National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center has recovered $48 million worth of counterfeit PPE and other products.22 Collaborative efforts between law enforcement and manufacturers have kept numerous counterfeits from reaching the population. In countries with strong IP protection, the chances of counterfeit products reaching the market are significantly lower. This is largely because counterfeiting tends to be an IP-related issue, and these countries generally provide superior means of tracking the supply chain through trademarks, trade secrets, and licensing agreements. This enables greater quality control and helps manufacturers maintain a level of public confidence in their products. By controlling the flow of knowledge associated with IP, voluntary licensing agreements provide innovators with opportunities to collaborate, while ensuring their partners are properly equipped and capable of producing quality products. Throughout this difficult time, the world has seen unexpected collaborations, especially between biopharmaceutical companies worldwide such as Gilead and Eva Pharma or Bharat Biotech and Ocugen, Inc. Throughout history, and most significantly in the nineteenth century through the widespread development of patent systems and the ensuing Industrial Revolution, IP has contributed toward greater economic growth.23 This is promising news as the world struggles for economic recovery. A 2021 joint study by the EU Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) and European Patent Office (EPO) shows a strong, positive correlation between IP rights and economic performance.24 It states that “IP-owning firms represent a significantly larger proportion of economic activity and employment across Europe,” with IP-intensive industries contributing to 45 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) (€6.6 trillion; US$7.9 trillion).25 The study also shows 38.9 percent of employment is directly or indirectly attributed to IP-intensive industries, and IP generates higher wages and greater revenue per employee, especially for small-to-medium-sized enterprises.26 That concords with the United States, where the Department of Commerce estimated that IP-intensive industries support at least 45 million jobs and contribute more than $6 trillion dollars to, or 38.2 percent of, GDP.27 In 2020, global patent filings through the World Intellectual Property Organization’s (WIPO) Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) system reached a record 275,900 filings amidst the pandemic, growing 4 percent from 2019.28 The top-four nations, which accounted for 180,530 of the patent applications, were China, the United States, Japan, and Korea, respectively.29 While several countries saw an increase in patent filings, Saudi Arabia and Malaysia both saw significant increases in the number of annual applications, with the top two filing growths of 73 percent and 26 percent, respectively.30 The COVID-19 pandemic slowed a lot of things, but it certainly couldn’t stop innovation. There are at least five principal benefits strong IP rights can generate, for both developing and developed countries alike.31 First, stronger IP protection spurs the virtuous cycle of innovation by increasing the appropriability of returns, enabling economic gain and catalyzing economic growth. Second, through patents—which require innovators to disclose certain knowledge as a condition of protection—knowledge spillovers build a platform of knowledge that enables other innovators. For instance, studies have found that the rate of return to society from corporate RandD and innovation activities is at least twice the estimated returns that each company itself receives.32 Third, countries with robust IP can operate more efficiently and productively by using IP to determine product quality and reduce transaction costs. Fourth, trade and foreign direct investment enabled and encouraged by strong IP protection offered to enterprises from foreign countries facilitates an accumulation of knowledge capital within the destination economy. That matters when foreign sources of technology account for over 90 percent of productivity growth in most countries.33 There’s also evidence suggesting that developing nations with stronger IP protections enjoy the earlier introduction of innovative new medicines.34 And fifth, strong IP boosts exports, including in developing countries.35 Research shows a positive correlation between stronger IP protection and exports from developing countries as well as faster growth rates of certain industries.36 The following case studies illustrate these benefits of IP and how they’ve enabled innovative solutions to help global society navigate the COVID-19 pandemic. This sets a precedent that spills over to all future diseases – Hopkins 21: Jared S. Hopkins {Jared S. Hopkins is a New York-based reporter for The Wall Street Journal covering the pharmaceutical industry, including companies such as Pfizer Inc. and Merck and Co. He previously was a health-care reporter at Bloomberg News and an investigative reporter at the Chicago Tribune. Jared started his career at The Times-News in Twin Falls, Idaho covering politics. In 2014, he was a finalist for the Livingston Award For Young Journalists for an investigation into charities founded by professional athletes. In 2011, he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Investigative Reporting for a series about neglect at a residential facility for disabled kids. Jared graduated from the Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland-College Park with a bachelor's degree in journalism}, 21 - ("U.S. Support for Patent Waiver Unlikely to Cost Covid-19 Vaccine Makers in Short Term ," WSJ, 5-7-2021, https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-support-for-patent-waiver-unlikely-to-cost-covid-19-vaccine-makers-in-short-term-11620414260)//marlborough-wr/ The Biden administration’s unexpected support for temporarily waiving Covid-19 vaccine patents won’t have an immediate financial impact on the companies making the shots, industry officials and analysts said. Yet the decision could mark a shift in Washington’s longstanding support of the industry’s valuable intellectual property, patent-law experts said. A waiver, if it does go into effect, may pose long-term risks to the vaccine makers, analysts said. Moderna Inc., MRNA -4.12 Pfizer Inc. PFE -3.10 and other vaccine makers weren’t counting on sales from the developing countries that would gain access to the vaccine technology, analysts said. If patents and other crucial product information behind the technology is made available, it would take at least several months before shots were produced, industry officials said. Yet long-term Covid-19 sales could take a hit if other companies and countries gained access to the technologies and figured out how to use it. Western drugmakers could also confront competition sooner for other medicines they are hoping to make using the technologies. A World Trade Organization waiver could also set a precedent for waiving patents for other medicines, a long-sought goal of some developing countries, patient groups and others to try to reduce the costs of prescription drugs. “It sets a tremendous precedent of waiving IP rights that’s likely going to come up in future pandemics or in other serious diseases,” said David Silverstein, a patent lawyer at Axinn, Veltrop and Harkrider LLP who advises drugmakers. “Other than that, this is largely symbolic.” Pharmaceutical innovation is key to protecting against future pandemics, bioterrorism, and antibiotic resistance. Marjanovic and Fejiao ‘20 Marjanovic, Sonja, and Carolina Feijao. Sonja Marjanovic, Ph.D., Judge Business School, University of Cambridge. Carolina Feijao, Ph.D. in biochemistry, University of Cambridge; M.Sc. in quantitive biology, Imperial College London; B.Sc. in biology, University of Lisbon. "Pharmaceutical Innovation for Infectious Disease Management: From Troubleshooting to Sustainable Models of Engagement." (2020). Quality Control As key actors in the healthcare innovation landscape, pharmaceutical and life sci-ences companies have been called on to develop medicines, vaccines and diagnostics for pressing public health challenges. The COVID-19 crisis is one such challenge, but there are many others. For example, MERS, SARS, Ebola, Zika and avian and swine flu are also infectious diseases that represent public health threats. Infectious agents such as anthrax, smallpox and tularemia could present threats in a bioterrorism con-text.1 The general threat to public health that is posed by antimicrobial resistance is also well-recognised as an area in need of pharmaceutical innovation. Innovating in response to these challenges does not always align well with pharmaceutical industry commercial models, shareholder expectations and compe-tition within the industry. However, the expertise, networks and infrastructure that industry has within its reach, as well as public expectations and the moral imperative, make pharmaceutical companies and the wider life sciences sector an indispensable partner in the search for solutions that save lives. This perspective argues for the need to establish more sustainable and scalable ways of incentivising pharmaceu-tical innovation in response to infectious disease threats to public health. It considers both past and current examples of efforts to mobilise pharmaceutical innovation in high commercial risk areas, including in the context of current efforts to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. In global pandemic crises like COVID-19, the urgency and scale of the crisis – as well as the spotlight placed on pharmaceutical companies – mean that contributing to the search for effective medicines, vaccines or diagnostics is essential for socially responsible companies in the sec-tor.2 It is therefore unsurprising that we are seeing indus-try-wide efforts unfold at unprecedented scale and pace. Whereas there is always scope for more activity, industry is currently contributing in a variety of ways. Examples include pharmaceutical companies donating existing com-pounds to assess their utility in the fight against COVID-19; screening existing compound libraries in-house or with partners to see if they can be repurposed; accelerating tri-als for potentially effective medicine or vaccine candidates; and in some cases rapidly accelerating in-house research and development to discover new treatments or vaccine agents and develop diagnostics tests.3,4 Pharmaceutical companies are collaborating with each other in some of these efforts and participating in global RandD partnerships (such as the Innovative Medicines Initiative effort to accel-erate the development of potential therapies for COVID-19) and supporting national efforts to expand diagnosis and testing capacity and ensure affordable and ready access to potential solutions.3,5,6 The primary purpose of such innovation is to benefit patients and wider population health. Although there are also reputational benefits from involvement that can be realised across the industry, there are likely to be rela-tively few companies that are ‘commercial’ winners. Those who might gain substantial revenues will be under pres-sure not to be seen as profiting from the pandemic. In the United Kingdom for example, GSK has stated that it does not expect to profit from its COVID-19 related activities and that any gains will be invested in supporting research and long-term pandemic preparedness, as well as in developing products that would be affordable in the world’s poorest countries.7 Similarly, in the United States AbbVie has waived intellectual property rights for an existing com-bination product that is being tested for therapeutic poten-tial against COVID-19, which would support affordability and allow for a supply of generics.8,9 Johnson and Johnson has stated that its potential vaccine – which is expected to begin trials – will be available on a not-for-profit basis during the pandemic.10 Pharma is mobilising substantial efforts to rise to the COVID-19 challenge at hand. However, we need to consider how pharmaceutical innovation for responding to emerging infectious diseases can best be enabled beyond the current crisis. Many public health threats (including those associated with other infectious diseases, bioterror-ism agents and antimicrobial resistance) are urgently in need of pharmaceutical innovation, even if their impacts are not as visible to society as COVID-19 is in the imme-diate term. The pharmaceutical industry has responded to previous public health emergencies associated with infec-tious disease in recent times – for example those associated with Ebola and Zika outbreaks.11 However, it has done so to a lesser scale than for COVID-19 and with contribu-tions from fewer companies. Similarly, levels of activity in response to the threat of antimicrobial resistance are still low.12 There are important policy questions as to whether – and how – industry could engage with such public health threats to an even greater extent under improved innova-tion conditions. Bioterror causes extinction---quick innovation key Farmer 17 (“Bioterrorism could kill more people than nuclear war, Bill Gates to warn world leaders” http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/17/biological-terrorism-could-kill-people-nuclear-attacks-bill/) Bioterrorists could one day kill hundreds of millions of people in an attack more deadly than nuclear war, Bill Gates will warn world leaders. Rapid advances in genetic engineering have opened the door for small terrorism groups to tailor and easily turn biological viruses into weapons. A resulting disease pandemic is currently one of the most deadly threats faced by the world, he believes, yet governments are complacent about the scale of the risk. Speaking ahead of an address to the Munich Security Conference, the richest man in the world said that while governments are concerned with the proliferation of nuclear and chemical weapons, they are overlooking the threat of biological warfare. Mr Gates, whose charitable foundationis funding research into quickly spotting outbreaks and speeding up vaccine production, said the defence and security establishment “have not been following biology and I’m here to bring them a little bit of bad news”. Mr Gates will today (Saturday) tell an audience of international leaders and senior officers that the world’s next deadly pandemic “could originate on the computer screen of a terrorist”. He told the Telegraph: “Natural epidemics can be extremely large. Intentionally caused epidemics, bioterrorism, would be the largest of all. “With nuclear weapons, you’d think you would probably stop after killing 100million. Smallpox won’t stop. Because the population is naïve, and there are no real preparations. That, if it got out and spread, would be a larger number.” He said developments in genetic engineering were proceeding at a “mind-blowing rate”. Biological warfare ambitions once limited to a handful of nation states are now open to small groups with limited resources and skills. He said: “They make it much easier for a non-state person. It doesn’t take much biology expertise nowadays to assemble a smallpox virus. Biology is making it way easier to create these things.” The increasingly common use of gene editing technology would make it difficult to spot any potential terrorist conspiracy. Technologies which have made it easy to read DNA sequences and tinker with them to rewrite or tweak genes have many legitimate uses. He said: “It’s not like when someone says, ‘Hey I’d like some Plutonium’ and you start saying ‘Hmmm.. I wonder why he wants Plutonium?’” Mr Gates said the potential death toll from a disease outbreak could be higher than other threats such as climate change or nuclear war. He said: “This is like earthquakes, you should think in order of magnitudes. If you can kill 10 people that’s a one, 100 people that’s a two... Bioterrorism is the thing that can give you not just sixes, but sevens, eights and nines. “With nuclear war, once you have got a six, or a seven, or eight, you’d think it would probably stop. With bioterrorism it’s just unbounded if you are not there to stop the spread of it.” By tailoring the genes of a virus, it would be possible to manipulate its ability to spread and its ability to harm people. Mr Gates said one of the most potentially deadly outbreaks could involve the humble flu virus. It would be relatively easy to engineer a new flu strain combining qualities from varieties that spread like wildfire with varieties that were deadly. The last time that happened naturally was the 1918 Spanish Influenza pandemic, which went on to kill more than 50 million people – or nearly three times the death toll from the First World War. By comparison, the recent Ebola outbreak in West Africa which killed just over 11,000 was “a Richter Scale three, it’s a nothing,” he said. But despite the potential, the founder of Microsoft said that world leaders and their militaries could not see beyond the more recognised risks. He said: “Should the world be serious about this? It is somewhat serious about normal classic warfare and nuclear warfare, but today it is not very serious about bio-defence or natural epidemics.” He went on: “They do tend to say ‘How easy is it to get fissile material and how accurate are the plans out on the internet for dirty bombs, plutonium bombs and hydrogen bombs?’ “They have some people that do that. What I am suggesting is that the number of people that look at bio-defence is worth increasing.” Whether naturally occurring, or deliberately started, it is almost certain that a highly lethal global pandemic will occur within our lifetimes, he believes. But the good news for those contemplating the potential damage is that the same biotechnology can prevent epidemics spreading out of control. Mr Gates will say in his speech that most of the things needed to protect against a naturally occurring pandemic are the same things needed to prepare for an intentional biological attack. Nations must amass an arsenal of new weapons to fight such a disease outbreak, including vaccines, drugs and diagnostic techniques. Being able to develop a vaccine as soon as possible against a new outbreak is particularly important and could save huge numbers of lives, scientists working at his foundation believe.
10/30/21
SepOct - HIF CP
Tournament: St Marks | Round: 2 | Opponent: Kai Do | Judge: Joshua Martin Marlborough JYK v Harvard-Westlake KD
HIF CP Counterplan text: The member nations of the World Trade Organization) should implement and fund a Health Impact Fund as per the Hollis and Pogge 08 card The Health Impact Fund would guarantee patent rights and increase profits, while also equalizing the cost of medicines Hollis and Pogge ’08 - Aidan Hollis Associate Professor of Economics, the University of Calgary and Thomas Pogge Leitner Professor of Philosophy and International Affairs, Yale University, “The Health Impact Fund Making New Medicines Accessible for All,” Incentives for Global Health (2008) AT We propose the Health Impact Fund as the most sensible solution that comprehensively addresses the problems. Financed by governments, the HIF would offer patentees the option to forgo monopoly pricing in exchange for a reward based on the global health impact of their new medicine. By registering a patented medicine with the HIF, a company would agree to sell it globally at cost. In exchange, the company would receive, for a fixed time, payments based on the product’s assessed global health impact. The arrangement would be optional and it wouldn’t diminish patent rights.¶ The HIF has the potential to be an institution that benefits everyone: patients, rich and poor alike, along with their caregivers; pharmaceutical companies and their shareholders; and taxpayers.¶ HOW THE HEALTH IMPACT FUND WORKS FOR PATIENTS¶ The HIF increases the incentives to invest in developing medicines that have high health impact. It directs research toward the medicines that can do the most good. It can also reward the development of new products, and the discovery of new uses for existing products, which the patent system alone can’t stimulate because of inadequate protection from imitation. All patients, rich and poor, would benefit from refocusing the innovation and marketing priorities of pharmaceutical companies toward health impact.¶ Any new medicines and new uses of existing medicines registered for health impact rewards would be available everywhere at marginal cost from the start. Many patients – especially in poor countries, but increasingly in wealthy ones too – are unable to afford the best treatment because it is too expensive. Even if fully insured, patients oft en lack access to medicines because their insurer deems them too expensive to reimburse. The HIF simply and directly solves this problem for registered drugs by setting their prices at marginal cost.¶ HOW THE HEALTH IMPACT FUND WORKS FOR PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES¶ Most proposals for increasing access to medicines would reduce the profits of pharmaceutical companies and hence their ability to fund research. The HIF, however, leaves the existing options of pharmaceutical firms untouched. It merely gives them the opportunity to make additional profits by developing new high-impact medicines that would be unprofitable or less profitable under monopoly pricing. Selling such registered medicines at cost, firms won’t be forced to defend a policy of charging high prices to poor people and they won’t be pressured to make charitable donations. With HIF-registered medicines they can instead “do well by doing good”: bring real benefit to patients in a profitable way. Research scientists of these firms will be encouraged to focus on addressing the most important diseases, not merely those that can support high prices.¶ HOW THE HEALTH IMPACT FUND WORKS FOR TAXPAYERS¶ The HIF will be supported mainly by governments, which are supported by the taxes they collect. Taxpayers want value for their money, and the HIF provides exactly that. Because the HIF is a more efficient way of incentivizing the pharmaceutical RandD we all want, total expenditures on medicines need not increase. However, if they do, the reason is that new medicines that would not have existed without the HIF are being developed. The HIF mechanism is designed to ensure that taxpayers always obtain value for money in the sense that any product regis-tered with the HIF will have a lower cost for a given amount of health impact than products outside the HIF. Taxpayers may also benefit from a reduction in risks of pandemics and other health problems that easily cross national borders. Innovation DA Bioterror The pharma industry is strong now but patents are key for continued economic growth. Batell and PhRMA 14: Batell and PhRMA {Battelle is the world’s largest nonprofit independent research and development organization, providing innovative solutions to the world’s most pressing needs through its four global businesses: Laboratory Management, National Security, Energy, Environment and Material Sciences, and Health and Life Sciences. The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) represents the country’s leading pharmaceutical research and biotechnology companies, which are devoted to inventing medicines that allow patients to live longer, healthier, and more productive lives.}, 14 – “The U.S. Biopharmaceutical Industry: Perspectives on Future Growth and The Factors That Will Drive It,” http://phrma-docs.phrma.org/sites/default/files/pdf/2014-economic-futures-report.pdf//marlborough-wr// Compared to other capital-intensive, advanced manufacturing industries in the U.S., the biopharmaceutical industry is a leader in RandD investment, IP generation, venture capital investment, and RandD employment. Policies and infrastructure that helped foster these innovative activities have allowed the U.S. to seize global leadership in biopharmaceutical RandD over the past 30 years. However, as this report details, other countries are seeking to compete with the U.S. by borrowing and building upon some of these pro-innovation policies to improve their own operating environment and become more favorable to biopharmaceutical companies making decisions about where to locate their RandD and manufacturing activities. A unique contribution of this report was the inclusion of the perspective of senior-level strategic planning executives of biopharmaceutical companies regarding what policy areas they see as most likely to impact the favorability of the U.S. business operating environment. The executives cited the following factors as having the most impact on the favorability of the operating environment and hence, potential growth of the innovative biopharmaceutical industry in the U.S.: • Coverage and payment policies that support and encourage medical innovation • A well-functioning, science-based regulatory system • Strong IP protection and enforcement in the U.S. and abroad The top sub-attribute identified as driving future biopharmaceutical industry growth in the U.S. cited by executives was a domestic IP system that provides adequate patent rights and data protection. Collectively, these factors underscore the need to reduce uncertainties and ensure adequate incentives for the lengthy, costly, and risky RandD investments necessary to develop new treatments needed by patients and society to address our most costly and challenging diseases. With more than 300,000 jobs at stake between the two scenarios, the continued growth and leadership of the U.S. innovative biopharmaceutical industry cannot be taken for granted. Continued innovation is fundamental to U.S. economic well-being and the nation’s ability to compete effectively in a globalized economy and to take advantage of the expected growth in demand for new medicines around the world. Just as other countries have drawn lessons from the growth of the U.S. biopharmaceutical sector, the U.S. needs to assess how it can improve the environment for innovation and continue to boost job creation by increasing RandD investment, fostering a robust talent pool, enhancing economic growth and sustainability, and continuing to bring new medicines to patients. COVID has kept patents and innovation strong, but continued protection is key to innovation by incentivizing biomedical research – it’s also crucial to preventing counterfeit medicines, economic collapse, and fatal diseases, which independently turns case. Macdole and Ezell 4-29: Jaci Mcdole and Stephen Ezell {Jaci McDole is a senior policy analyst covering intellectual property (IP) and innovation policy at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF). She focuses on IP and its correlations to global innovation and trade. McDole holds a double BA in Music Business and Radio-Television with a minor in Marketing, an MS in Education, and a JD with a specialization in intellectual property (Southern Illinois University Carbondale). McDole comes to ITIF from the Institute for Intellectual Property Research, an organization she co-founded to study and further robust global IP policies. Stephen Ezell is vice president, global innovation policy, at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF). He comes to ITIF from Peer Insight, an innovation research and consulting firm he cofounded in 2003 to study the practice of innovation in service industries. At Peer Insight, Ezell led the Global Service Innovation Consortium, published multiple research papers on service innovation, and researched national service innovation policies being implemented by governments worldwide. Prior to forming Peer Insight, Ezell worked in the New Service Development group at the NASDAQ Stock Market, where he spearheaded the creation of the NASDAQ Market Intelligence Desk and the NASDAQ Corporate Services Network, services for NASDAQ-listed corporations. Previously, Ezell cofounded two successful innovation ventures, the high-tech services firm Brivo Systems and Lynx Capital, a boutique investment bank. Ezell holds a B.S. from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, with an honors certificate from Georgetown’s Landegger International Business Diplomacy program.}, 21 - ("Ten Ways Ip Has Enabled Innovations That Have Helped Sustain The World Through The Pandemic," Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, 4-29-2021, https://itif.org/publications/2021/04/29/ten-ways-ip-has-enabled-innovations-have-helped-sustain-world-through)//marlborough-wr/ To better understand the role of IP in enabling solutions related to COVID-19 challenges, this report relies on 10 case studies drawn from a variety of nations, technical fields, and firm sizes. This is but a handful of the thousands of IP-enabled innovations that have sprung forth over the past year in an effort to meet the tremendous challenges brought on by COVID-19 globally. From a paramedic in Mexico to a veteran vaccine manufacturing company in India and a tech start-up in Estonia to a U.S.-based company offering workplace Internet of Things (IoT) services, small and large organizations alike are working to combat the pandemic. Some have adapted existing innovations, while others have developed novel solutions. All are working to take the world out of the pandemic and into the future. The case studies are: Bharat Biotech: Covaxin Gilead: Remdesivir LumiraDX: SARS-COV-2 Antigen POC Test Teal Bio: Teal Bio Respirator XE Ingeniería Médica: CápsulaXE Surgical Theater: Precision VR Tombot: Jennie Starship Technologies: Autonomous Delivery Robots Triax Technologies: Proximity Trace Zoom: Video Conferencing As the case studies show, IP is critical to enabling innovation. Policymakers around the world need to ensure robust IP protections are—and remain—in place if they wish their citizens to have safe and innovative solutions to health care, workplace, and societal challenges in the future. THE ROLE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY IN RandD-INTENSIVE INDUSTRIES Intangible assets, such as IP rights, comprised approximately 84 percent of the corporate value of SandP 500 companies in 2018.4 For start-ups, this means much of the capital needed to operate is directly related to IP (see Teal Bio case study for more on this). IP also plays an especially important role for RandD-intensive industries.5 To take the example of the biopharmaceutical industry, it is characterized by high-risk, time-consuming, and expensive processes including basic research, drug discovery, pre-clinical trials, three stages of human clinical trials, regulatory review, and post-approval research and safety monitoring. The drug development process spans an average of 11.5 to 15 years.6 For every 5,000 to 10,000 compounds screened on average during the basic research and drug discovery phases, approximately 250 molecular compounds, or 2.5 to 5 percent, make it to preclinical testing. Out of those 250 molecular compounds, approximately 5 make it to clinical testing. That is, 0.05 to 0.1 percent of drugs make it from basic research into clinical trials. Of those rare few which make it to clinical testing, less than 12 percent are ultimately approved for use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).7 In addition to high risks, drug development is costly, and the expenses associated with it are increasing. A 2019 report by the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions concluded that since 2010 the average cost of bringing a new drug to market increased by 67 percent.8 Numerous studies have examined the substantial cost of biopharmaceutical RandD, and most confirm investing in new drug development requires $1.7 billion to $3.2 billion up front on average.9 A 2018 study by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness found similar risks and figures for vaccines, stating, “In general, vaccine development from discovery to licensure can cost billions of dollars, can take over 10 years to complete, and has an average 94 percent chance of failure.”10 Yet, a 2010 study found that 80 percent of new drugs—that is, the less than 12 percent ultimately approved by the FDA—made less than their capitalized RandD costs.11 Another study found that only 1 percent (maybe three new drugs each year) of the most successful 10 percent of FDA approved drugs generate half of the profits of the entire drug industry.12 To say the least, biopharmaceutical RandD represents a high-stakes, long-term endeavor with precarious returns. Without IP protection, biopharmaceutical manufacturers have little incentive to take the risks necessary to engage in the RandD process because they would be unable to recoup even a fraction of the costs incurred. Diminished revenues also result in reduced investments in RandD which means less research into cancer drugs, Alzheimer cures, vaccines, and more. IP rights give life-sciences enterprises the confidence needed to undertake the difficult, risky, and expensive process of life-sciences innovation secure in the knowledge they can capture a share of the gains from their innovations, which is indispensable not only to recouping the up-front RandD costs of a given drug, but which can generate sufficient profits to enable investment in future generations of biomedical innovation and thus perpetuate the enterprises into the future.13 THE IMPORTANCE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY TO INNOVATION Although anti-IP proponents have attacked biopharmaceutical manufacturers particularly hard, the reality is all IP-protected innovations are at risk if these rights are ignored, or vitiated. Certain arguments have shown a desire for the term “COVID-19 innovations” to include everything from vaccines, therapeutics, diagnostics, and PPE to biotechnology, AI-related data, and educational materials.14 This could potentially open the floodgates to invalidate IP protection on many of the innovations highlighted in this report. However, much of the current discussion concerning IP focuses almost entirely on litigation fears or RandD incentives. Although RandD is an important aspect of IP, as previously mentioned, these discussions ignore the fact that IP protection can be—and often is—used for other purposes, including generating initial capital to create a company and begin manufacturing and, more importantly, using licensing agreements and IP to track the supply chain and ensure quality control of products. This report highlights but a handful of the thousands of IP-enabled innovations that have sprung forth over the past year in an effort to meet the tremendous challenges brought on by COVID-19 globally. In 2018, Forbes identified counterfeiting as the largest criminal enterprise in the world.15 The global struggle against counterfeit and non-regulated products, which has hit Latin America particularly hard during the pandemic, proves the need for safety and quality assurance in supply chains.16 Some communities already ravaged by COVID-19 are seeing higher mortality rates related to counterfeit vaccines, therapeutics, PPE, and cleaning and sanitizing products.17 Polish authorities discovered vials of antiwrinkle treatment labeled as COVID-19 vaccines. 18 In Mexico, fake vaccines sold for approximately $1,000 per dose.19 Chinese and South African police seized thousands of counterfeit vaccine doses from warehouses and manufacturing plants.20 Meanwhile, dozens of websites worldwide claiming to sell vaccines or be affiliated with vaccine manufacturers have been taken down.21 But the problem is not limited to biopharmaceuticals. The National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center has recovered $48 million worth of counterfeit PPE and other products.22 Collaborative efforts between law enforcement and manufacturers have kept numerous counterfeits from reaching the population. In countries with strong IP protection, the chances of counterfeit products reaching the market are significantly lower. This is largely because counterfeiting tends to be an IP-related issue, and these countries generally provide superior means of tracking the supply chain through trademarks, trade secrets, and licensing agreements. This enables greater quality control and helps manufacturers maintain a level of public confidence in their products. By controlling the flow of knowledge associated with IP, voluntary licensing agreements provide innovators with opportunities to collaborate, while ensuring their partners are properly equipped and capable of producing quality products. Throughout this difficult time, the world has seen unexpected collaborations, especially between biopharmaceutical companies worldwide such as Gilead and Eva Pharma or Bharat Biotech and Ocugen, Inc. Throughout history, and most significantly in the nineteenth century through the widespread development of patent systems and the ensuing Industrial Revolution, IP has contributed toward greater economic growth.23 This is promising news as the world struggles for economic recovery. A 2021 joint study by the EU Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) and European Patent Office (EPO) shows a strong, positive correlation between IP rights and economic performance.24 It states that “IP-owning firms represent a significantly larger proportion of economic activity and employment across Europe,” with IP-intensive industries contributing to 45 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) (€6.6 trillion; US$7.9 trillion).25 The study also shows 38.9 percent of employment is directly or indirectly attributed to IP-intensive industries, and IP generates higher wages and greater revenue per employee, especially for small-to-medium-sized enterprises.26 That concords with the United States, where the Department of Commerce estimated that IP-intensive industries support at least 45 million jobs and contribute more than $6 trillion dollars to, or 38.2 percent of, GDP.27 In 2020, global patent filings through the World Intellectual Property Organization’s (WIPO) Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) system reached a record 275,900 filings amidst the pandemic, growing 4 percent from 2019.28 The top-four nations, which accounted for 180,530 of the patent applications, were China, the United States, Japan, and Korea, respectively.29 While several countries saw an increase in patent filings, Saudi Arabia and Malaysia both saw significant increases in the number of annual applications, with the top two filing growths of 73 percent and 26 percent, respectively.30 The COVID-19 pandemic slowed a lot of things, but it certainly couldn’t stop innovation. There are at least five principal benefits strong IP rights can generate, for both developing and developed countries alike.31 First, stronger IP protection spurs the virtuous cycle of innovation by increasing the appropriability of returns, enabling economic gain and catalyzing economic growth. Second, through patents—which require innovators to disclose certain knowledge as a condition of protection—knowledge spillovers build a platform of knowledge that enables other innovators. For instance, studies have found that the rate of return to society from corporate RandD and innovation activities is at least twice the estimated returns that each company itself receives.32 Third, countries with robust IP can operate more efficiently and productively by using IP to determine product quality and reduce transaction costs. Fourth, trade and foreign direct investment enabled and encouraged by strong IP protection offered to enterprises from foreign countries facilitates an accumulation of knowledge capital within the destination economy. That matters when foreign sources of technology account for over 90 percent of productivity growth in most countries.33 There’s also evidence suggesting that developing nations with stronger IP protections enjoy the earlier introduction of innovative new medicines.34 And fifth, strong IP boosts exports, including in developing countries.35 Research shows a positive correlation between stronger IP protection and exports from developing countries as well as faster growth rates of certain industries.36 The following case studies illustrate these benefits of IP and how they’ve enabled innovative solutions to help global society navigate the COVID-19 pandemic. Pharmaceutical innovation is key to protecting against future pandemics, bioterrorism, and antibiotic resistance. Marjanovic and Fejiao ‘20 Marjanovic, Sonja, and Carolina Feijao. Sonja Marjanovic, Ph.D., Judge Business School, University of Cambridge. Carolina Feijao, Ph.D. in biochemistry, University of Cambridge; M.Sc. in quantitive biology, Imperial College London; B.Sc. in biology, University of Lisbon. "Pharmaceutical Innovation for Infectious Disease Management: From Troubleshooting to Sustainable Models of Engagement." (2020). Quality Control As key actors in the healthcare innovation landscape, pharmaceutical and life sci-ences companies have been called on to develop medicines, vaccines and diagnostics for pressing public health challenges. The COVID-19 crisis is one such challenge, but there are many others. For example, MERS, SARS, Ebola, Zika and avian and swine flu are also infectious diseases that represent public health threats. Infectious agents such as anthrax, smallpox and tularemia could present threats in a bioterrorism con-text.1 The general threat to public health that is posed by antimicrobial resistance is also well-recognised as an area in need of pharmaceutical innovation. Innovating in response to these challenges does not always align well with pharmaceutical industry commercial models, shareholder expectations and compe-tition within the industry. However, the expertise, networks and infrastructure that industry has within its reach, as well as public expectations and the moral imperative, make pharmaceutical companies and the wider life sciences sector an indispensable partner in the search for solutions that save lives. This perspective argues for the need to establish more sustainable and scalable ways of incentivising pharmaceu-tical innovation in response to infectious disease threats to public health. It considers both past and current examples of efforts to mobilise pharmaceutical innovation in high commercial risk areas, including in the context of current efforts to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. In global pandemic crises like COVID-19, the urgency and scale of the crisis – as well as the spotlight placed on pharmaceutical companies – mean that contributing to the search for effective medicines, vaccines or diagnostics is essential for socially responsible companies in the sec-tor.2 It is therefore unsurprising that we are seeing indus-try-wide efforts unfold at unprecedented scale and pace. Whereas there is always scope for more activity, industry is currently contributing in a variety of ways. Examples include pharmaceutical companies donating existing com-pounds to assess their utility in the fight against COVID-19; screening existing compound libraries in-house or with partners to see if they can be repurposed; accelerating tri-als for potentially effective medicine or vaccine candidates; and in some cases rapidly accelerating in-house research and development to discover new treatments or vaccine agents and develop diagnostics tests.3,4 Pharmaceutical companies are collaborating with each other in some of these efforts and participating in global RandD partnerships (such as the Innovative Medicines Initiative effort to accel-erate the development of potential therapies for COVID-19) and supporting national efforts to expand diagnosis and testing capacity and ensure affordable and ready access to potential solutions.3,5,6 The primary purpose of such innovation is to benefit patients and wider population health. Although there are also reputational benefits from involvement that can be realised across the industry, there are likely to be rela-tively few companies that are ‘commercial’ winners. Those who might gain substantial revenues will be under pres-sure not to be seen as profiting from the pandemic. In the United Kingdom for example, GSK has stated that it does not expect to profit from its COVID-19 related activities and that any gains will be invested in supporting research and long-term pandemic preparedness, as well as in developing products that would be affordable in the world’s poorest countries.7 Similarly, in the United States AbbVie has waived intellectual property rights for an existing com-bination product that is being tested for therapeutic poten-tial against COVID-19, which would support affordability and allow for a supply of generics.8,9 Johnson and Johnson has stated that its potential vaccine – which is expected to begin trials – will be available on a not-for-profit basis during the pandemic.10 Pharma is mobilising substantial efforts to rise to the COVID-19 challenge at hand. However, we need to consider how pharmaceutical innovation for responding to emerging infectious diseases can best be enabled beyond the current crisis. Many public health threats (including those associated with other infectious diseases, bioterror-ism agents and antimicrobial resistance) are urgently in need of pharmaceutical innovation, even if their impacts are not as visible to society as COVID-19 is in the imme-diate term. The pharmaceutical industry has responded to previous public health emergencies associated with infec-tious disease in recent times – for example those associated with Ebola and Zika outbreaks.11 However, it has done so to a lesser scale than for COVID-19 and with contribu-tions from fewer companies. Similarly, levels of activity in response to the threat of antimicrobial resistance are still low.12 There are important policy questions as to whether – and how – industry could engage with such public health threats to an even greater extent under improved innova-tion conditions. Bioterror causes extinction---quick innovation key Farmer 17 (“Bioterrorism could kill more people than nuclear war, Bill Gates to warn world leaders” http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/17/biological-terrorism-could-kill-people-nuclear-attacks-bill/) Bioterrorists could one day kill hundreds of millions of people in an attack more deadly than nuclear war, Bill Gates will warn world leaders. Rapid advances in genetic engineering have opened the door for small terrorism groups to tailor and easily turn biological viruses into weapons. A resulting disease pandemic is currently one of the most deadly threats faced by the world, he believes, yet governments are complacent about the scale of the risk. Speaking ahead of an address to the Munich Security Conference, the richest man in the world said that while governments are concerned with the proliferation of nuclear and chemical weapons, they are overlooking the threat of biological warfare. Mr Gates, whose charitable foundationis funding research into quickly spotting outbreaks and speeding up vaccine production, said the defence and security establishment “have not been following biology and I’m here to bring them a little bit of bad news”. Mr Gates will today (Saturday) tell an audience of international leaders and senior officers that the world’s next deadly pandemic “could originate on the computer screen of a terrorist”. He told the Telegraph: “Natural epidemics can be extremely large. Intentionally caused epidemics, bioterrorism, would be the largest of all. “With nuclear weapons, you’d think you would probably stop after killing 100million. Smallpox won’t stop. Because the population is naïve, and there are no real preparations. That, if it got out and spread, would be a larger number.” He said developments in genetic engineering were proceeding at a “mind-blowing rate”. Biological warfare ambitions once limited to a handful of nation states are now open to small groups with limited resources and skills. He said: “They make it much easier for a non-state person. It doesn’t take much biology expertise nowadays to assemble a smallpox virus. Biology is making it way easier to create these things.” The increasingly common use of gene editing technology would make it difficult to spot any potential terrorist conspiracy. Technologies which have made it easy to read DNA sequences and tinker with them to rewrite or tweak genes have many legitimate uses. He said: “It’s not like when someone says, ‘Hey I’d like some Plutonium’ and you start saying ‘Hmmm.. I wonder why he wants Plutonium?’” Mr Gates said the potential death toll from a disease outbreak could be higher than other threats such as climate change or nuclear war. He said: “This is like earthquakes, you should think in order of magnitudes. If you can kill 10 people that’s a one, 100 people that’s a two... Bioterrorism is the thing that can give you not just sixes, but sevens, eights and nines. “With nuclear war, once you have got a six, or a seven, or eight, you’d think it would probably stop. With bioterrorism it’s just unbounded if you are not there to stop the spread of it.” By tailoring the genes of a virus, it would be possible to manipulate its ability to spread and its ability to harm people. Mr Gates said one of the most potentially deadly outbreaks could involve the humble flu virus. It would be relatively easy to engineer a new flu strain combining qualities from varieties that spread like wildfire with varieties that were deadly. The last time that happened naturally was the 1918 Spanish Influenza pandemic, which went on to kill more than 50 million people – or nearly three times the death toll from the First World War. By comparison, the recent Ebola outbreak in West Africa which killed just over 11,000 was “a Richter Scale three, it’s a nothing,” he said. But despite the potential, the founder of Microsoft said that world leaders and their militaries could not see beyond the more recognised risks. He said: “Should the world be serious about this? It is somewhat serious about normal classic warfare and nuclear warfare, but today it is not very serious about bio-defence or natural epidemics.” He went on: “They do tend to say ‘How easy is it to get fissile material and how accurate are the plans out on the internet for dirty bombs, plutonium bombs and hydrogen bombs?’ “They have some people that do that. What I am suggesting is that the number of people that look at bio-defence is worth increasing.” Whether naturally occurring, or deliberately started, it is almost certain that a highly lethal global pandemic will occur within our lifetimes, he believes. But the good news for those contemplating the potential damage is that the same biotechnology can prevent epidemics spreading out of control. Mr Gates will say in his speech that most of the things needed to protect against a naturally occurring pandemic are the same things needed to prepare for an intentional biological attack. Nations must amass an arsenal of new weapons to fight such a disease outbreak, including vaccines, drugs and diagnostic techniques. Being able to develop a vaccine as soon as possible against a new outbreak is particularly important and could save huge numbers of lives, scientists working at his foundation believe. Case
TRIPS reduces global health inequality Samir Raheem Alsoodani 15, “"The WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) may offered an access to essential pharmaceutical drugs for developing countries,” Journal Of the College of law /Al-Nahrain University 2015, Volume 17, Issue 2, Pages 393-410, https://www.iasj.net/iasj/article/109180 To conclude, it is beyond doubt that the TRIPS Agreement and its later, permanent amendment of 2005 attempted in good faith to address an urgent issue faced by many developing countries with regards to accessing essential medicine. To a certain extent in its basic tenets, it has had a profound and positive effect on the system, as it has made permanently possible the opportunity for the poorest countries to obtain medications more cheaply through manufacture in developing countries under a compulsory licensing system. Certain positive outcomes arguably include the fact that disputes have been brought under the jurisdiction of one regulatory body, and the least developed Members have found some redress in the power balance regarding costs paid to the pharmaceutical industries based in the wealthier, developed countries (even if this redress has only been to the extent of facilitating increased bargaining capability). This can be considered a triumph from the perspective of universal human rights. GHI is declining now Isma Addi Jumbri et al. 19, Faculty of Technology Management and Technopreneurship, University Teknikal, Melaka, Malaysia, Shinya Ikeda, Masayuki Jimichi, Chika Saka and Shunsuke Managi, December 2nd, 2019, “Inequality of health stock and the relation to national wealth,” https://equityhealthj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12939-019-1096-x Overall, in most groups by income countries, inequalities have decreased. Figure 2 shows that the Gini coefficient of health stock declined rapidly from 1990 to 2015, especially for LICs, and declined slowly in lower-middle income countries (LMICs) and upper-middle income countries (UMICs). The Gini coefficient for LICs indicated steadily decline, from 0.69 in 1990 to 0.66 in 2015. From the analysis (see Fig. 3), the working-age population (an increase of 108.6) and growth in life expectancy at birth (an increase of 19.2) in LICs were most likely the contributing factors to the decline in inequality. LICs, particularly for SSA, have the world’s highest youth population growth rate (nearly 20 of SSA’s total population) and the highest share of youth in the working-age population 39. SSA alone is likely to account for nearly two-thirds of the growth in the world’s working-age population between 2015 and 2050 40.
Impact D- covid over soon Pandemic will be over in a year Reuters, 9-23, 21, Moderna chief executive sees pandemic over in a year – newspaper, https://news.trust.org/item/20210923052810-q5d40 ZURICH, Sept 23 (Reuters) - Moderna Inc Chief Executive Stéphane Bancel thinks the coronavirus pandemic could be over in a year as increased vaccine production ensures global supplies, he told the Swiss newspaper Neue Zuercher Zeitung. "If you look at the industry-wide expansion of production capacities over the past six months, enough doses should be available by the middle of next year so that everyone on this earth can be vaccinated. Boosters should also be possible to the extent required," he told the newspaper in an interview. Vaccinations would soon be available even for infants, he said. "Those who do not get vaccinated will immunize themselves naturally, because the Delta variant is so contagious. In this way we will end up in a situation similar to that of the flu. You can either get vaccinated and have a good winter. Or you don't do it and risk getting sick and possibly even ending up in hospital." Asked if that meant a return to normal in the second half of next year, he said: "As of today, in a year, I assume." Bancel said he expected governments to approve booster shots for people already vaccinated because patients at risk who were vaccinated last autumn "undoubtedly" needed a refresher. Its booster shot had half the dose of the original dose, which meant more of them would be available. "The volume of vaccine is the biggest limiting factor. With half the dose, we would have 3 billion doses available worldwide for the coming year instead of just 2 billion," he said. The composition of the booster shot remains the same as the original for this year because Moderna had not had enough time to change it. "We are currently testing Delta-optimized variants in clinical trials. They will form the basis for the booster vaccination for 2022. We are also trying out Delta plus Beta, the next mutation that scientists believe is likely." Moderna can use existing production lines for the new variants as for the original COVID-19 vaccine. The price of vaccination will stay the same, he said. (Reporting by Michael Shields Editing by Robert Birsel)
Their climate excalation impacts were supposed to come within the year, after the first post-COVID grain harvest – it was written in april 2020 – this should’ve already happened 2. The Kitfield Card a. This person evidently has reason to believe both that the LIO is good and that China is always looking to destroy it with nuclear weapons – remember what happened last time we listened to these people and this ideology b. The card is pessimistic securitization– the facts say COVID is bringing countries closer together, but the rhetoric says they’re primed for war c. Xi was being more provocative in response to Trump blaming him for COVID, not COVID himself – Biden isn’t Trump d. The EU are the people that don’t support the vaccine waiver, but France is mad at us for deploying nuclear submarines against China – these alliances and grievances between countries don’t neatly match up across issues, so solving COVID won’t increase international cooperation 3. We rehighlighted their OWN CARD whose tagline is “no alt cause” – that’s a lie – the US is mad at the WTO to the point of forcing its leadership to run aground AND barely participates anyway – the WTO is dying and useless, especially in the context of China and the US, and the EU doesn’t like it either so it’s already illegitimate and we’re still standing Meyer 6-18-21 (David, Senior Writer, https://fortune.com/2021/06/18/wto-covid-vaccines-patents-waiver-south-africa-trips/) The World Trade Organization knows all about crises. Former U.S. President Donald Trump threw a wrench into its core function of resolving trade disputes—a blocker that President Joe Biden has not yet removed—and there is widespread dissatisfaction over the fairness of the global trade rulebook. The 164-country organization, under the fresh leadership of Nigeria's Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has a lot to fix. However, one crisis is more pressing than the others: the battle over COVID-19 vaccines, and whether the protection of their patents and other intellectual property should be temporarily lifted to boost production and end the pandemic sooner rather than later. According to some of those pushing for the waiver—which was originally proposed last year by India and South Africa—the WTO's future rests on what happens next. "The credibility of the WTO will depend on its ability to find a meaningful outcome on this issue that truly ramps-up and diversifies production," says Xolelwa Mlumbi-Peter, South Africa's ambassador to the WTO. "Final nail in the coffin" The Geneva-based WTO isn't an organization with power, as such—it's a framework within which countries make big decisions about trade, generally by consensus. It's supposed to be the forum where disputes get settled, because all its members have signed up to the same rules. And one of its most important rulebooks is the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, or TRIPS, which sprang to life alongside the WTO in 1995. The WTO's founding agreement allows for rules to be waived in exceptional circumstances, and indeed this has happened before: its members agreed in 2003 to waive TRIPS obligations that were blocking the importation of cheap, generic drugs into developing countries that lack manufacturing capacity. (That waiver was effectively made permanent in 2017.) Consensus is the key here. Although the failure to reach consensus on a waiver could be overcome with a 75 supermajority vote by the WTO's membership, this would be an unprecedented and seismic event. In the case of the COVID-19 vaccine IP waiver, it would mean standing up to the European Union, and Germany in particular, as well as countries such as Canada and the U.K.—the U.S. recently flipped from opposing the idea of a waiver to supporting it, as did France. It's a dispute between countries, but the result will be on the WTO as a whole, say waiver advocates. "If, in the face of one of humanity's greatest challenges in a century, the WTO functionally becomes an obstacle as in contrast to part of the solution, I think it could be the final nail in the coffin" for the organization, says Lori Wallach, the founder of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch, a U.S. campaigning group that focuses on the WTO and trade agreements. "If the TRIPS waiver is successful, and people see the WTO as being part of the solution—saving lives and livelihoods—it could create goodwill and momentum to address what are still daunting structural problems." Those problems are legion. Reform needs Top of the list is the WTO's Appellate Body, which hears appeals in members' trade disputes. It's a pivotal part of the international trade system, but Trump—incensed at decisions taken against the U.S. —blocked appointments to its seven-strong panel as judges retired. The body became completely paralyzed at the end of 2019, when two judges' terms ended and the panel no longer had the three-judge quorum it needs to rule on appeals. Anyone who hoped the advent of the Biden administration would change matters was disappointed earlier this year when the U.S. rejected a European proposal to fill the vacancies. "The United States continues to have systemic concerns with the appellate body," it said. "As members know, the United States has raised and explained its systemic concerns for more than 16 years and across multiple U.S. administrations." At her confirmation hearing in February, current U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai reiterated those concerns—she said the appellate body had "overstepped its authority and erred in interpreting WTO agreements in a number of cases, to the detriment of the United States and other WTO members," and accused it of dragging its heels in settling disputes. "Reforms are needed to ensure that the underlying causes of such problems do not resurface," Tai said. "While the U.S. has been engaging with the WTO it hasn't indicated it would move quickly on allowing appointments to the Appellate Body," says Bryan Mercurio, an economic-law professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, who opposes the vaccine waiver. "This is not a good sign. In terms of WTO governance, it's a much more important step than supporting negotiations on an intellectual property waiver." It's not just the U.S. that wants to see reform at the WTO. In a major policy document published in February, the EU said negotiations had failed to modernize the organization's rules, the dispute-resolution system was broken, the monitoring of countries' trade policies was ineffective, and—crucially—"the trade relationship between the U.S. and China, two of the three largest WTO members, is currently largely managed outside WTO disciplines." China is one of the key problems here. It became a WTO member in 2001 but, although this entailed significant liberalization of the Chinese economy, it did not become a full market economy. As the European Commission put it in February: "The level at which China has opened its markets does not correspond to its weight in the global economy, and the state continues to exert a decisive influence on China's economic environment with consequent competitive distortions that cannot be sufficiently addressed by current WTO rules." "China is operating from what it sees as a position of strength, so it will not be bullied into agreeing to changes which it sees as not in its interests," says Mercurio. China is at loggerheads with the U.S., the EU and others over numerous trade-related issues. Its rivals don't like its policy of demanding that Chinese citizens' data is stored on Chinese soil, nor do they approve of how foreign investors often have to partner with Chinese firms to access the country's market, in a way that leads to the transfer of technological knowhow. They also oppose China's industrial subsidies. Mercurio thinks China may agree to reforms on some of these issues, particularly regarding subsidies, but "only if it is offered something in return." All these problems won't go away if the WTO manages to come up with a TRIPS waiver for COVID-19 vaccines and medical supplies, Wallach concedes. "But," she adds, "the will and the good faith to tackle these challenges is increased enormously if the WTO has the experience of being part of the solution, not just an obstacle." Wallach points to a statement released earlier this month by Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) trade ministers, which called for urgent discussions on the waiver. "The WTO must demonstrate that global trade rules can help address the human catastrophe of the COVID-19 pandemic and facilitate the recovery," the statement read in its section about WTO reform. Okonjo-Iweala's role The WTO's new director general, whose route to the top was unblocked in early 2021 with the demise of the Trump administration, is certainly keen to fix the problems that contributed to the early departure of her predecessor, Brazil's Robert Azevedo. "We must act now to get all our ambassadors to the table to negotiate a text" on the issue of an IP waiver for COVID vaccines, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, director general of the World Trade Organization, has said. Dursun Aydemir—Anadolu/Bloomberg/Getty Images Earlier this week, when the U.S. and EU agreed a five-year ceasefire in a long-running dispute over Boeing and Airbus aircraft subsidies, Okonjo-Iweala tweeted: "With political will, we can solve even the most intractable problems." However, Mercurio is skeptical about her stewardship having much of an effect on the WTO's reform process. "Upon taking over she stated it was time for delegations to speak to each other and not simply past each other, but at the recent General Counsel meeting delegations simply read prepared statements in what some have described as the worst meeting ever," he says. "On the other hand, Ngozi is very much someone who will actively seek solutions to problems, and in this way different to her predecessor. If the role of mediator is welcomed, she could have an impact not in starting discussions but in getting deals over the finish line." A spokesperson for the WTO Secretariat declined to offer comment on Mlumbi-Peter and Wallach's suggestions that the organization's credibility rests on the vaccine patent waiver issue, but pointed to a May speech in which Okonjo-Iweala said the WTO could help tackle vaccine supply chain monitoring and transparency, helping manufacturers scale up production, and creating a more geographically diversified manufacturing base. In her speech, the WTO chief also said members "must address issues related to technology transfer, knowhow and intellectual property," including the waiver proposal. "We must act now to get all our ambassadors to the table to negotiate a text," she said.
No inherency – governments and the WTO are already reducing IP protections for medicines related to COVID-19. WTO No Date WTO, no date, "TRIPS, the intellectual property system and COVID-19," No Publication, https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/trips_e/trips_and_covid19_e.htm accessed 8/10/2021JH TRIPS, the intellectual property system and COVID-19 ¶The way in which an intellectual property (IP) system is designed at national or regional levels – and how effectively it is put to work - can be a significant factor in facilitating access to existing technologies and in supporting the creation, manufacturing and dissemination of new technologies, such as medicines, vaccines and medical devices, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This question – the relationship of IP to the pandemic response – has sparked a vigorous debate within and beyond the WTO, and is a high priority for technical assistance and policy support for WTO members. This page gives access to background information and current WTO documents (including members’ proposals) on this urgent question. ¶Introduction ¶From the beginning of the pandemic, the pressing need was clear for both the development of new vaccines and treatments, and access to these medicines for all – a global challenge unprecedented in both scope and urgency. ¶Governments and other stakeholders have therefore focused on how innovation mechanisms and tools for enhancing access to medical technologies can contribute to the pandemic response, well beyond a reliance on “business as usual”. This has led to a range of initiatives by international organizations, governments and private actors for the voluntary sharing, pooling or non-assertion of IP rights (IPRs), responding to the spirit of collaboration that dominates the global effort to tackle the pandemic. ¶A range of pro-health policy options and interventions are also available for WTO members under the TRIPS Agreement, as implemented in domestic law. ¶Transparency and the availability of up-to-date information on IP and COVID-19 respond to an immediate and critical need. They contribute to the empirical basis that is essential for policy-making in a rapidly evolving trade landscape in the mutual interest of all stakeholders, including governments and economic operators. ¶In furtherance of this objective, the following sections provide access to useful WTO and other resources that specifically address the interface between IPRs and COVID-19, as well as to the work of the TRIPS Council ¶Work of the TRIPS Council ¶Members have exchanged information and experiences relating to IP measures taken in the context of COVID-19 at the TRIPS Council, and have considered members’ proposals. The interface between IPRs and COVID-19 has been considered in TRIPS Council meetings since July 2020, supported by communications to the TRIPS Council. ¶WTO resources ¶Members have exchanged information and experiences relating to IP measures taken in the context of COVID-19 at the TRIPS Council, and have considered members’ proposals. The interface between IPRs and COVID-19 has been considered in TRIPS Council meetings since July 2020, supported by communications to the TRIPS Council. ¶COVID-19 and world trade ¶COVID-19: Measures regarding trade-related intellectual property rights ¶A non-exhaustive list has been compiled by the WTO Secretariat from official sources and confirmed with WTO members concerned. It represents an informal situation report and an attempt to provide transparency with respect to measures regarding trade-related IPRs taken by WTO members in the context of the COVID-19 crisis. The list is regularly updated. ¶Information Note: The TRIPS Agreement and COVID-19¶This note discusses the role and some of the key contributions that the global IP system, including its policy options and flexibilities as implemented in domestic law, can make to address COVID-19. It also provides an overview of measures taken by members. ¶Information Note: How WTO members have used trade measures to expedite access to COVID-19 critical medical goods and services ¶This note on access to COVID-19 critical medical goods and services includes information on using IPRs and policy tools to facilitate innovation in and access to COVID-19-related technologies. ¶Information Note: Developing and delivering COVID-19 vaccines around the world ¶This note looks at issues with trade impact and discusses trade policy choices, including in the area of intellectual property rights, that may be considered along the vaccine value chain to support access to COVID-19 vaccines. ¶An integrated health, trade and IP approach to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic ¶A standalone section on COVID-19 in the 2020 study jointly published by the World Health Organization (WHO), World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and WTO, Promoting Access to Medical Technologies and Innovation: Intersections between public health, intellectual property and trade (second edition), maps the multiple challenges posed by the pandemic in relation to the integrated health, trade and IP policy frameworks set out in the study. ¶Working Paper: Patent-related actions taken in WTO members in response to the COVID-19 pandemic¶This working paper provides an overview of the patent landscape of medical treatments and technologies related to COVID-19, and of the patent status of two investigational medical treatments: remdesivir and lopinavir/ritonavir. It presents various patent-related actions taken by legislators, policymakers, industry sectors and civil society organizations in members since the outbreak. Furthermore, it elaborates on patent-related policy options provided by the TRIPS Agreement, and members' national implementation and utilization of these options in their response to the COVID-19 pandemic. WTO, no date, "TRIPS, the intellectual property system and COVID-19," No Publication, https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/trips_e/trips_and_covid19_e.htm accessed 8/10/2021JH TRIPS, the intellectual property system and COVID-19 ¶The way in which an intellectual property (IP) system is designed at national or regional levels – and how effectively it is put to work - can be a significant factor in facilitating access to existing technologies and in supporting the creation, manufacturing and dissemination of new technologies, such as medicines, vaccines and medical devices, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This question – the relationship of IP to the pandemic response – has sparked a vigorous debate within and beyond the WTO, and is a high priority for technical assistance and policy support for WTO members. This page gives access to background information and current WTO documents (including members’ proposals) on this urgent question. ¶Introduction ¶From the beginning of the pandemic, the pressing need was clear for both the development of new vaccines and treatments, and access to these medicines for all – a global challenge unprecedented in both scope and urgency. ¶Governments and other stakeholders have therefore focused on how innovation mechanisms and tools for enhancing access to medical technologies can contribute to the pandemic response, well beyond a reliance on “business as usual”. This has led to a range of initiatives by international organizations, governments and private actors for the voluntary sharing, pooling or non-assertion of IP rights (IPRs), responding to the spirit of collaboration that dominates the global effort to tackle the pandemic. ¶A range of pro-health policy options and interventions are also available for WTO members under the TRIPS Agreement, as implemented in domestic law. ¶Transparency and the availability of up-to-date information on IP and COVID-19 respond to an immediate and critical need. They contribute to the empirical basis that is essential for policy-making in a rapidly evolving trade landscape in the mutual interest of all stakeholders, including governments and economic operators. ¶In furtherance of this objective, the following sections provide access to useful WTO and other resources that specifically address the interface between IPRs and COVID-19, as well as to the work of the TRIPS Council ¶Work of the TRIPS Council ¶Members have exchanged information and experiences relating to IP measures taken in the context of COVID-19 at the TRIPS Council, and have considered members’ proposals. The interface between IPRs and COVID-19 has been considered in TRIPS Council meetings since July 2020, supported by communications to the TRIPS Council. ¶WTO resources ¶Members have exchanged information and experiences relating to IP measures taken in the context of COVID-19 at the TRIPS Council, and have considered members’ proposals. The interface between IPRs and COVID-19 has been considered in TRIPS Council meetings since July 2020, supported by communications to the TRIPS Council. ¶COVID-19 and world trade ¶COVID-19: Measures regarding trade-related intellectual property rights ¶A non-exhaustive list has been compiled by the WTO Secretariat from official sources and confirmed with WTO members concerned. It represents an informal situation report and an attempt to provide transparency with respect to measures regarding trade-related IPRs taken by WTO members in the context of the COVID-19 crisis. The list is regularly updated. ¶Information Note: The TRIPS Agreement and COVID-19¶This note discusses the role and some of the key contributions that the global IP system, including its policy options and flexibilities as implemented in domestic law, can make to address COVID-19. It also provides an overview of measures taken by members. ¶Information Note: How WTO members have used trade measures to expedite access to COVID-19 critical medical goods and services ¶This note on access to COVID-19 critical medical goods and services includes information on using IPRs and policy tools to facilitate innovation in and access to COVID-19-related technologies. ¶Information Note: Developing and delivering COVID-19 vaccines around the world ¶This note looks at issues with trade impact and discusses trade policy choices, including in the area of intellectual property rights, that may be considered along the vaccine value chain to support access to COVID-19 vaccines. ¶An integrated health, trade and IP approach to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic ¶A standalone section on COVID-19 in the 2020 study jointly published by the World Health Organization (WHO), World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and WTO, Promoting Access to Medical Technologies and Innovation: Intersections between public health, intellectual property and trade (second edition), maps the multiple challenges posed by the pandemic in relation to the integrated health, trade and IP policy frameworks set out in the study. ¶Working Paper: Patent-related actions taken in WTO members in response to the COVID-19 pandemic¶This working paper provides an overview of the patent landscape of medical treatments and technologies related to COVID-19, and of the patent status of two investigational medical treatments: remdesivir and lopinavir/ritonavir. It presents various patent-related actions taken by legislators, policymakers, industry sectors and civil society organizations in members since the outbreak. Furthermore, it elaborates on patent-related policy options provided by the TRIPS Agreement, and members' national implementation and utilization of these options in their response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
A2 Solvency in unsafe or ineffective medicines. Turns solvency because too many people will be afraid of the vaccine to achieve herd immunity. Crosby et al. 21Daniel Crosby, Evan Diamond, Isabel Fernandez De La Cuesta, Jamieson Greer, Jeffrey Telep, Brian White; Crosby specializes in international trade, investment and matters related to public international law. Diamond is a partner on our Intellectual Property, Patent, Trademark and Copyright Litigation team.; 3-5-2021; "Group of Nearly 60 WTO Members Seek Unprecedented Waiver from WTO Intellectual Property Protection for COVID-related Medical Products"; https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/group-of-nearly-60-wto-members-seek-2523821/, JD Supra, accessed 7-21-2021; JPark Waiver risks uncontrolled use of patented technologies, without improving vaccine access. Pharmaceutical companies can provide, and have provided, licenses to distribute or scale-up production of COVID-19 vaccines and therapies at reduced cost. Such license agreements allow for expanded access in low- and middle-income countries, while also setting reasonable parameters so that patents and other IP rights are used to address the specific medical needs of the COVID-19 pandemic at hand, and not for other purposes. License agreements also allow for orderly technology transfer, including of unpatented “trade secret” information and other critical “know-how,” that may be essential to efficiently producing and scaling-up safe and effective versions of technologically complex vaccines and biologic drug products. Under the present TRIPS waiver proposal, however, member countries could try to exploit an extraordinarily broad scope of IP and copy patented technologies so long as they are “in relation to prevention, containment or treatment of COVID-19.” For example, under an expansive reading of the proposed waiver language, a member country could try to produce patented pharmaceutical compounds that have other indicated uses predating COVID-19, if such compounds had later been studied or experimentally used for potential symptomatic relief or antiviral activity in COVID-19 patients. The same risks may be faced by manufacturers of patented materials or devices that have multiple uses predating COVID-19, but also may be used as “personal protective equipment” or components thereof, or in other measures arguably relating to COVID-19 “prevention” or “containment.” At the same time, it is unclear how the proposed TRIPS waiver could provide the technology transfer and know-how critical for making the complex molecules and formulations constituting the various COVID-19 vaccines. Vaccine manufacture undertaken by an unauthorized party without the proper processes and controls could result in a different product that is potentially ineffective or results in unwanted health consequences. And even if an unauthorized manufacturer could overcome those substantial hurdles to reverse-engineer and scale up a safe and effective vaccine copy, it would likely take substantial time and a series of failures to do so. Notably, several of the original COVID-19 vaccine developers have recently faced low product yield and other manufacturing challenges during pre-commercial scale-up efforts and the initial months of commercial production. ongoing quality assurance support.
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Tournament: Meadows Invitational | Round: 4 | Opponent: Hunter Foster | Judge: Jada Stinnett Salado HF v Marlborough JK NC Shell – Suggested Neolib K Medium Neolib NC The Aff’s portrayal of a world with reduced IP protections as an “information commons” where Eurocentricism is solved by deregulation perpetuates the neoliberal myth of increased competition ensuring a perfect market Kapczynski 14 (Amy, a Professor of Law at Yale Law School, Faculty Co-Director of the Global Health Justice Partnership, and Faculty Co-Director of the Collaboration for Research Integrity and Transparency. She is also Faculty Co-Director of the Law and Political Economy Project and cofounder of the Law and Political Economy blog. Her areas of research include information policy, intellectual property law, international law, and global health.) “INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY’S LEVIATHAN” Duke Law, Law and Contemporary problems, 2014. https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4710andcontext=lcp BC Over the last decade or so, a powerful set of critiques has emerged to contest the dominant account just sketched out as well as the contemporary state of IP law.12 These arguments have come from many directions, some even arising from scholars who previously were champions of the dominant account.13 The most prominent and potent line of theoretical critique in the legal literature has come in the guise of arguments for free culture and the “information commons” and has been most influentially articulated by Lawrence Lessig and Yochai Benkler.14 Both have stressed the problems with expansive exclusive rights regimes in information and have also sketched a set of actually existing alternatives to market-based exclusionary forms of information and cultural production. Lessig has written a series of influential books that have made him a “rock star of the information age,”15 particularly for young Internet and free-culture activists. He has argued powerfully, for example, that existing copyright law is in deep conflict with the radical new possibilities for creativity in the digital age. As he points out, when a mother posting a video of her toddler dancing to a Prince song on YouTube is threatened with a $150,000 fine for copyright infringement, something has gone seriously awry.16 Lessig also contends that copyright law today is too long, too expansive, and instantiates a “permission culture” that is antithetical to free expression in the age of the remix.17 As he puts it, “the Internet has unleashed an extraordinary possibility for many to participate in the process of building and cultivating a culture that reaches far beyond local boundaries,” creating the possibility of markets that “include a much wider and more diverse range of creators,” if not stifled by incumbents who use IP law to “protect themselves against this competition.”18 Benkler’s work has also been extraordinarily formative in the field, particularly for his insights into the multiplicity of modes of information production. As he has stressed, the conventional justification for IP does not account for the many successful and longstanding modes of market nonexclusionary information production.19 For example, attorneys write articles to attract clients, software developers sell services customizing free and opensource software for individual clients, and bands give music away for free to increase revenues from touring or merchandise.20 More pathbreaking still is Benkler’s account of the importance of “commons-based peer production,” a form of socially motivated and cooperative production exemplified by the volunteer network that maintains Wikipedia or the groups of coders who create open-source software products such as the Linux operating system.21 In the digital networked age, as Benkler describes, the tools of information production are very broadly distributed, “creating new opportunities for how we make and exchange information, knowledge, and culture.”22 These changes have increased the relative role in our information economy of nonproprietary production and facilitate “new forms of production that are based neither in the state nor in the market.”23 Because commons-based peer production is not hierarchically organized and is motivated by social dynamics and concerns, it also offers new possibilities for human development, human freedom, a more critical approach to culture, and more democratic forms of political participation.24 This line of critique has been profoundly generative and has helped launch an important new conceptualization of the commons as a paradigm. That paradigm, as a recent book puts it, “helps us ‘get outside’ of the dominant discourse of the market economy and helps us represent different, more wholesome ways of being.”25 Proponents of the commons concept draw upon contemporary articulations of successful commons-based resource management by Elinor Ostrom and her followers.26 They do mobilize retellings of the political and economic history of the commons in land in Europe before enclosure,27 and recent evidence from psychology and behavioral economics that suggests that humans have deep tendencies toward cooperation and reciprocation.28 They argue that A key revelation of the commons way of thinking is that we humans are not in fact isolated, atomistic individuals. We are not amoebas with no human agency except hedonistic “utility preferences” expressed in the marketplace. No: We are commoners—creative, distinctive individuals inscribed within larger wholes. We may have unattractive human traits fueled by individual fears and ego, but we are also creatures entirely capable of self-organization and cooperation; with a concern for fairness and social justice; and willing to make sacrifices for the larger good and future generations.29 This stands, of course, as a powerful rebuke to the neoliberal imaginary, which “constructs and interpellates individuals as . . . rational, calculating creatures whose moral autonomy is measured by their capacity for ‘self-care’— the ability to provide for their own needs and service their own ambitions.”30 III Given this radical—and, in my view, critically important—attempt to rethink the subject at the core of neoliberal accounts, it is all the more striking that proponents of the commons often appear to adopt a neoliberal image of the state. For example, the introduction to a recently edited volume that gathers writings on the commons from seventy-three authors in thirty countries (entitled, tellingly, The Wealth of the Commons: A World Beyond Market and State) has this to say: The presumption that the state can and will intervene to represent the interests of citizens is no longer credible. Unable to govern for the long term, captured by commercial interests and hobbled by stodgy bureaucratic structures in an age of nimble electronic networks, the state is arguably incapable of meeting the needs of citizens as a whole.31 The commons, they suggest, is a concept that seeks not only to liberate us from predatory and dysfunctional markets, but also from predatory and dysfunctional states. Something immediately seems incongruous here. If people are inherently cooperative reciprocators, why are states irredeemably corrupt? After all, as Harold Demsetz famously wrote in his 1967 attack on Arrow’s optimism about state production of information, “government is a group of people.”32 Lessig, one of the progenitors of the language of the commons in the informational domain, often leads with a similar view of the state: If the twentieth century taught us one lesson, it is the dominance of private over state ordering. Markets work better than Tammany Hall in deciding who should get what, when. Or as Nobel Prize-winning economist Ronald Coase put it, whatever problems there are with the market, the problems with government are more profound.33 Lessig reveals his own sense of the power of this conception of the state when he seeks to tar IP law with the same brush; we should rebel against current IP law, he suggests, because we should “limit the government’s role in choosing the future of creativity.”34 Benkler is more measured but admits as well to viewing the state as “a relatively suspect actor.”35 We should worry, he suggests, that direct governmental intervention “leads to centralization in the hands of government agencies and powerful political lobbies,”36 a view that echoes the neoliberal account described above. It should perhaps not surprise us that leading critics of neoliberal information policy embrace a neoliberal conception of the state. After all, neoliberalism is not merely an ideology, but also a set of policy prescriptions that may have helped to call forth the state that it has described. As David Harvey puts it, “the neoliberal fear that special-interest groups would pervert and subvert the state is nowhere better realized than in Washington, where armies of corporate lobbyists . . . effectively dictate legislation to match their special interests.”37 There are, it must be said, few areas of law that better exemplify this problem than IP law. For example, Jessica Litman has documented the astonishing process through which the 1976 Copyright Act was drafted, in which Congress delegated most of the drafting to interest groups that were forced to negotiate with one another.38 Other scholars have offered similarly startling accounts of the genesis of the most important IP treaty today, the TradeRelated Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement. TRIPS came into force in 1996, revolutionizing international IP law by both imposing new standards and by rendering them enforceable through the WTO’s disputeresolution system, which authorizes trade retaliation to enforce its judgments. Most countries in the world are members of TRIPS, and the Agreement introduced, for developing countries in particular, substantial new obligations, such as the obligation to grant patents on medicines and food-related inventions. Several excellent histories of the treaty have been written, documenting its beginnings as a brash idea proposed by “twelve chief executive officers (representing pharmaceutical, entertainment, and software industries).”39 As Susan Sell has described, the TRIPS Agreement was a triumph of industry organizing. Through TRIPS, Industry revealed its power to identify and define a trade problem, devise a solution, and reduce it to a concrete proposal that could be sold to governments. These private sector actors succeeded in getting most of what they wanted from a global IP agreement, which now has the status of public international law. Attempts to reform the WTO are neoliberal attempts to sustain the US regime of accumulation – the contradictions of neoliberalism are why credibility is low, not IP protection Bachand 20 (Remi, Professor of International Law, Département des sciences juridiques, member of the Centre d’études sur le droit international et la mondialisation (CÉDIM), Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada) “What’s Behind the WTO Crisis? A Marxist Analysis” The European Journal of International Law, 8/12/2020. https://academic.oup.com/ejil/article-abstract/31/3/857/5920920?redirectedFrom=fulltext BC To offer our own explanation, we must recall two aspects of our theoretical framework. The first is Robert Cox’s claim113 that the function of international organizations is to ensure the creation and reproduction of hegemony. To be more accurate, they serve, if we follow his argument, to defend and to expand the ‘mode of production’ (we elected to substitute this term for the concept of ‘regime of accumulation’ that appears to be more appropriate for our means) of the dominant social classes of the dominant state. Joining this idea with the école de la régulation and social structure of accumulation theory writing114 according to which a regime of accumulation needs some regulation institutions to help resolve its contradictions (and ensure profits and capital accumulation to dominant social classes), we can conclude that the Geneva organization’s function in the US hegemonic order is to make sure that neoliberalism works well enough to provide a satisfying rate of profit for US capitalists. Going in that direction, Kristen Hopewell shows that the WTO’s creation participated in a shift in global governance from ‘embedded liberalism’ to neoliberalism115 and was slated to be an important part of that governance. Using the conceptual framework developed earlier, we can infer that the WTO was thus given a regulation function that was to ensure the operationalization of counteracting factors to the fall of the rate of profit for US capitalists. Now, as we have seen, the US rate of profit has been extremely unstable in the last two decades and Chinese expansion (and that of other ‘emerging countries’) allows one to predict that the situation could easily worsen in the future. Consequently, it should come as no surprise that the crisis that has been striking neoliberalism for the last 20 years may also result in a crisis of the organizations that are supposed to manage its contradictions, especially the WTO. Concretely, this organization seems unable to fulfil its regulatory function anymore, which is to ensure US capitalists a good rate of profit and opportunities to operationalize enough counteracting factors to negate its fall. To go further, we now need to return to Stephen Gill’s claim that the function of an international organization is to limit political and economic possibilities. It is to exclude, in other words, options that are incompatible with the social order promoted by the hegemon from what is possible and achievable.116 Effectively, the WTO was created to play such a role. Indeed, promoting liberalization of goods and services, protecting (notably intellectual) property rights and attacking subsidies (in non-agriculture sectors), just to give a few examples, all serve to severely reduce state interventions into the economy and to circumscribe or at least to strongly impede the turn towards an alternative model to neoliberalism
Neoliberalism rips apart communal bonds to maintain the illusion that structural inequalities are individual problems – the impact is systemic victim-blaming, poverty, and violence. Smith 12 (Candace, author for Societpages, cites Bruno Amable, Associate Professor of Economics at Paris School of Economics) “Neoliberalism and Individualism: Ego Leads to Interpersonal Violence?” Sociology Lens is the associated site for Sociology Compass, Wiley-Blackwell’s review journal on all fields sociological AT There appears to be a link between neoliberalism, individualism, and violence. In reference to the association between neoliberalism and individualism, consider neoliberalism’s insistence that we do not need society since we are all solely responsible for our personal well-being (Peters 2001; Brown 2003). From a criminological standpoint, it is not hard to understand how this focus on the individual can lead to violence. According to Hirschi’s (1969) social control theory, for instance, broken or weak social bonds free a person to engage in deviancy. Since, according to this theory, individuals are naturally self-interested, they can use the opportunity of individualization to overcome the restraining powers of society. Bearing in mind neoliberalism’s tendency to value the individual over society, it could be argued that this ideology is hazardous as it acts to tear apart important social bonds and to thereby contribute to the occurrence of ego-driven crimes, including violent interpersonal crimes. Such a thought suggests that as neoliberalism becomes more prominent in a country, it can be expected that individualism and, as a result, interpersonal violence within that country will increase. When it comes to individualization, this idea is one of the fundamental aspects of neoliberalism. In fact, Bauman (2000:34) argues that in neoliberal states “individualization is a fate, not a choice.” As Amable (2011) explains, neoliberals have realized that in order for their ideology to be successful, a state’s populace must internalize the belief that individuals are only to be rewarded based on their personal effort. With such an ego-driven focus, Scharff (2011) explains that the process of individualization engenders a climate where structural inequalities are converted into individual problems. The alt is to reject the aff in favor of a critique that cultivates educated hope - evaluate the aff and alt on the level of ideological commitments – these policies won’t happen which takes out consequentialism good offense – BUT until we unlearn the assumption that getting government out of the way will let markets flourish and solve all our problems, we'll never be able to engage in robust, communitarian policymaking that truly centers human need and our obligations to others. Wilson 17: Julie A. Wilson {Julie A. Wilson is Associate Professor, Allegheny College, Department of Communication Arts and Theatre. She has a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in Critical Media Studies and a M.A. in Comparative Studies in Discourse and Society. Her B.A. came from Macalester College, where she graduated Summa Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa}, 17 - ("Neoliberalism (Key Ideas in Media andamp; Cultural Studies): 9781138654631: Media Studies Books @ Amazon.com," Routledge, 7-19-2017, https://books.google.com/books?id=5pouDwAAQBAJandpg=PT29andlpg=PT29anddq=22unlearn+neoliberalism22andsource=blandots=vIhe_sQ1Wkandsig=ACfU3U0i7yO8ittjco_PDzZGO7rxU89CYAandhl=enandsa=Xandved=2ahUKEwiN4631n_ryAhUdCTQIHWLNAzcQ6AF6BAgCEAM#v=onepageandqandf=false)//marlborough-wr/ New Stories for New Worlds As we will see in our mapping of the neoliberal conjuncture, competition's totalizing yet tenuous power over our everyday lives is rooted in what Keating calls “status quo stories”—those stories that get told in popular culture, and that we often tell ourselves, which cement our relationship to our present conjuncture and our investment in the world as we currently know it. She explains: Generally spoken with great certainty, these and similar comments (commands, really) reflect unthinking affirmation of the existing reality and a stubborn, equally unthinking resistance to change. Because we believe that our status-quo stories represent accurate factual statements about ourselves, other people, and the world, we view them as permanent, unchanging facts. This belief in the status-quo's permanence becomes self-fulfilling: We do not try to make change because change is impossible to make. “It's always been that way,” we tell ourselves, “so why waste our energy trying to change things?” “People are just like that-it's human nature, so plan accordingly and alter your expectations! There's no point in trying to change human nature!" Status-quo stories trap us in our current circumstances and conditions; they limit our imaginations because they prevent us from envisioning alternate possibilities.10 Status-quo stories double down on reality, making it seem like those socially constructed forces impinging on us are natural rather than historical, political, and subject to change. “Status-quo stories have a numbing effect,” Keating writes. “When we organize our lives around such stories or in other ways use them as ethical roadmaps or guides, they prevent us from extending our imaginations and exploring additional possibilities."11 One of my students aptly described neoliberal culture as a “status-quo storytelling machine.” To keep us living in competition, neoliberalism generates a host of status-quo stories about the naturalness and inevitability of self-enclosed individualism. Indeed, we might say that self-enclosed individualism operates as the foundational status quo story of neoliberal culture, where competition has become synonymous with all of life. Self-enclosed individualism keeps us not only divided from one another, but also actively pitted against each other. We are stuck in an oppositional consciousness that refuses to acknowledge our social interconnections, even though, as our shared anxieties suggest, we've never had more in common than right now! No matter where we are or what we're doing, neoliberal culture encourages us to see each other through a competitive lens that makes the transformation of our social world, and ourselves, impossible. We become incapable of acknowledging how our fortunes and fates are entwined with those of others who are living very different realities. We become callous and hardened to the suffering of others. We see suffering and death everywhere, and while this might register as bad or wrong or upsetting, we nonetheless stay stuck within the horizons of our own self-enclosed bubbles. The devastating powers of status-quo stories are clear in so many of the conversations we have on college campuses about power, privilege, and difference. In fact, I started teaching courses on neoliberal culture to help my students understand the broader histories and contexts that were impinging on these conversations and making them so fraught, and ultimately so unproductive. Time and time again, in open community forums and classroom discussions of systemic inequalities, I watched students voice painful personal experiences only to get nowhere. Indeed, when asked to consider various forms of privilege, many of my white, male students get defensive. The idea that they haven't earned their place through their own decisions and hard work, but rather benefited from inherited wealth and opportunity, means that they are not good people from the perspective of neoliberalism. Talking about issues of privilege threatens to diminish their sense of self and individual value, so they recoil from conversations that ask them to see their place within broader legacies of settler colonialism, patriarchy, and capitalism. Accordingly, they hold on tight to status-quo stories of self-enclosed individualism to protect themselves, doubling down on their privilege to secure their status in a competitive world. However, it is important to see that status-quo stories of self- enclosed individualism also inform my students from historically oppressed and marginalized groups. These students suffer daily: they live in an environment that professes to celebrate “diversity,” while, in the context of their own lives, they are reminded again and again just how much they don't belong or matter. Not surprisingly, they demand “safe spaces” and protection for themselves and their peers, and they often draw hard lines between allies and enemies. Here too though, we see neoliberal stories at work. What matters for my students, and rightly so, is the way that “microaggressions”—those daily, mundane experiences of discrimination that accumulate over time-diminish their own capacities for flourishing as self-enclosed individuals. My point here is not to suggest that privileged students and marginalized students are the same because they are both invested in a version of self-enclosed individualism. Rather, my point is they share a situation; despite their different and unequal social positions, they have similar feelings-of defensiveness and a fear of failure—and status-quo stories in common. These commonalities do not imply evenness or equality, but rather interconnection, that is, a shared conjuncture. It is the recognition of this conjunctural interconnection that can thread our lives together and open up possibilities for more egalitarian futures. However, living in competition and the oppositional consciousness it demands obscure these commonalities and the interconnections that could bring students into new relations with one another. As a result, we stay caught up in the world as we know it. We stay stuck in competition, even though we all are yearning for different worlds. We desperately need new stories, stories that offer us different pathways to each other. As Keating puts it, we need stories that help us move from “me” to “we” consciousness.12 However, this book is not going to write these new stories for you. Rather, the goal of this book is to provide you with the resources for writing these new stories in and through your own lives. The Work of Critique Ultimately, writing new stories will require a new sense of yourself and your world, as well as what is possible, and realizing this new sense will require, first and foremost, cultivating a deeply critical orientation toward the world as we currently know and experience it. This critical orientation dislodges the sense of inevitability of neoliberalism, self-enclosed individualism, and living in competition; it knows that things don't have to be this way and, thus, senses the possibilities for resistance and transformation that are everywhere. It is so crucial to understand that this critical orientation is not simply about saying that aspects of neoliberal culture are “bad” or "wrong.” Rather, the work of critique is about seeing the flows of power and ways of thinking that make the neoliberal conjuncture possible and hold it together. Critique is therefore a mode of knowing—a form of everyday intellectual work—that is aimed at exposing the myriad workings of power and its status-quo stories. As Michel Foucault explains, “A critique is not a matter of saying that things are not right as they are. It is a matter of pointing out on what kinds of assumptions, what kinds of familiar, unchallenged, unconsidered modes of thought the practices that we accept rest.”13 To clarify Foucault's idea, let's think back to the student discussions of power and privilege discussed above. The work of critique is not simply about pointing out privilege, although this is, of course, vital work. The work of critique goes beyond pointing out what's wrong and seeks to unravel the socially constructed conjuncture in which these problems emerge and get negotiated. For only then can we step outside of the competitive, oppositional consciousness of neoliberal culture and begin to imagine a radically different future built on equality and shared security. This work of dislodging the inevitability of our conjuncture and its status-quo stories is hard but vital intellectual work that requires not only critique of our social world, but also transformation of ourselves. Indeed, truly critical work is always profoundly disruptive of our own identities and knowledges. This work can be immensely painful, as it strips away the certainty and comfort provided by status-quo stories. This work can also be, and should be, immensely joyful and life-giving, as it enables us to free ourselves from the status-quo stories and devastating limitations they put on our lives, imaginations, and social relationships. This mix of pain and joy at the heart of critical work comes from the way that critique asks us to “lose confidence” in our world. As feminist theorist Sara Ahmed writes, Losing confidence: it can be a feeling of something gradually going away from you, being eroded. You sense the erosion. You might stumble, hesitate, falter; things might gradually unravel so you end up holding onto the barest of threads. It might be an experience in the present that throws things up, throws you off balance.... When you lose confidence it can feel like you are losing yourself: like you have gone into hiding from yourself.4 Losing confidence in your world is thus a form of existential crisis —you are disoriented; your world is shattered. At the same time, losing confidence in status-quo stories means gaining confidence for resistance and transformation. We become bolder, less anxious, more optimistic, capable of social interconnection, political intervention, and acting on and from a place of commonality. This is real freedom. Critique is ultimately about unlearning our world so that we might reconstruct it anew. Losing confidence in neoliberal culture means being able to say no to it in the conduct of our daily lives. In these capacities for resistance, we gain confidence that another world might actually be better, worth opening ourselves up to, worth fighting for. We begin to cultivate what Henry Giroux calls educated hope. Educated hope is not “a romanticized and empty” version of hope; rather, it is a form of hope enabled by critique that “taps into our deepest experiences and longing for a life of dignity with others, a life in which it becomes possible to imagine a future that does not mimic the present.” With educated hope, our sense of who we are and of what might be possible shifts in profound ways. This is when those new worlds we are longing for open up. What’s to Come Each of the chapters that follow offer a variety of intellectual tools for mapping the neoliberal conjuncture. Taken together, they are designed to produce a holistic and thick understanding of neoliberalism and its myriad powers to shape our identities, sensibilities, social worlds, and political horizons. Having a thick understanding of neoliberalism means that you feel in your bones that there is nothing natural or inevitable about neoliberalism and its status-quo stories. It means that you understand that neoliberalism is the outcome of a range of contingent historical processes that have consequences across social, political, economic, and cultural fields. In other words, by the end of our journey, you'll know how our neoliberal conjuncture has been, and continues to be, constructed. You'll also, therefore, be able to sense the other worlds on the horizon that are just waiting to be constructed, so long as, together, we can develop the resources, capacities, and stories of interconnection for bringing them into being. More specifically, the book is divided into two sections. The first section, titled “Critical Foundations,” focuses on cultivating a broad, critical orientation toward neoliberal culture. The first chapter charts the rise of neoliberal hegemony through four historical phases. The goal is to illustrate exactly how competition came to be the driving cultural force in our everyday lives. As we will see, there is nothing natural or inevitable about neoliberalism. It was a political and class-based project to remake capitalism and liberal democracy that was conceived, organized for, and eventually won. In the second chapter, we delve into the world of neoliberal theory and its critical consequences. Here we'll explore exactly what neoliberal thinkers believe about the state, markets, and human actors, and what distinguishes neoliberalism from earlier schools of liberal thought. We'll also interrogate what I call the four Ds—disposability, dispossession, disimagination, and de- democratization—which, taken together, enable us to clearly see and articulate what is so devastating about the rise of neoliberalism. The third chapter examines the cultural powers specific to neoliberalism. Neoliberalism advances through culture, specifically through the promotion of an enterprise culture that works to impose competition as a norm across all arenas of social life. In order to see and specify how neoliberalism works through culture, we take contemporary education as a case study and unpack the entangled cultural powers of neoliberal governmentality, affect, and ideology. The second section is titled “Neoliberal Culture.” In these chapters, we explore the worlds of neoliberal labor, affect, and politics respectively, tracing what happens when our everyday lives as workers, individuals, and citizens become organized around living in competition. The fourth chapter examines how neoliberalism turns everyday life into a “hustle,” where all the contexts of daily life become animated by the demands of neoliberal labor. At stake here are the ways in which we are all hustling to get by, yet we stay radically divided from one another along lines of gender, race, and class thanks to the norm of self- enterprise. The next chapter hones in on what it feels like to inhabit enterprise culture by exploring neoliberal affect and the care of the self. As we already know, living in competition breeds widespread anxiety, not to mention depression and illness, making self-care an ongoing, pressing problem of everyday life. While neoliberal culture offers us plenty of tools for self-care that ultimately keep us stuck in our self-enclosed individualism, this chapter also considers how self-care might be a site for resistance and political intervention. The final chapter focuses on neoliberal politics, tracing what happens to citizenship and social action in our contemporary conjuncture. As we'll see, neoliberalism privatizes our political horizons by remaking democracy into a market competition for visibility and equality. Throughout this mapping of the neoliberal conjuncture, we will engage in a mode of critical work that will, hopefully, enable you to unlearn neoliberalism and thus begin to write new stories about our conjuncture—including both our commonalities and differences—and the alternative worlds we are yearning for. Indeed, our critical work will only matter to the extent that it opens up our individual and collective horizons to a future beyond living in competition.
Universal healthcare CP CP: The member nations of the World Trade Organization ought to implement a universal healthcare system. Implementing a UHC system gets medicine to the uninsured Goozner PhD 20 Merril Goozner (PhD and literally wrote the book on overpriced drugs, called “The 800$ pill), Winter 2020, "Insulin Should Be Free. Yes, Free.," Democracy Journal, https://democracyjournal.org/magazine/55/insulin-should-be-free-yes-free/ AW Later in the year, on the eve of the second Democratic Party debate, Senator Bernie Sanders, who has made Medicare-for-All his signature policy proposal, took a busload of diabetics to Canada to purchase insulin that is one-tenth the United States price. Sanders’s single-payer system would go beyond negotiating lower prices as is done in Canada and other industrialized nations. It would completely eliminate the copays and deductibles that stand in the way of many patients—including some who are well-insured—getting the medications they need. That our health-care system fails to provide essential medicines to people who face immediate death or injury without them is morally outrageous. The pricing and access policies of profit-seeking drug companies also make that failure quite literally a human rights violation. Those companies—and the government that fails to control them—are flagrantly ignoring the World Health Organization’s constitution, which calls “the highest attainable standard of health a fundamental right of every human being.” The document, which the United States signed in 1946, also says that “understanding health as a human right creates a legal obligation on states to ensure access to timely, acceptable, and affordable health care of appropriate quality.” Medicine needs to made free DIRECTLY – even after IP removal, likely new laws + industry subsidies to keep big pharma in power Goozner PhD 20 Merril Goozner (PhD and literally wrote the book on overpriced drugs, called “The 800$ pill), Winter 2020, "Insulin Should Be Free. Yes, Free.," Democracy Journal, https://democracyjournal.org/magazine/55/insulin-should-be-free-yes-free/ AW But flagrant violations of international norms have not convinced Congress to put an end to this human rights abuse. The drug industry’s protectors include virtually every member of the Republican Party, which marches in lockstep with the army of lobbyists deployed by Big Pharma. Last year, the drug industry spent $169.8 million on lobbying, more than any other industry. It’s on track to spend even more this year, having poured $129.4 million into its Washington influence machine through September, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Despite their numerous protests, many Democratic Party leaders remain conflicted about how to solve the problem. Too many legislators buy into the industry’s assertions that high prices are necessary to incentivize innovation. Most Democrats also accept drug and insurance industry campaign contributions, making them reluctant to pursue dramatic changes in the status quo. And conflicted members are in key positions for making policy. Since the beginning of 2019, New Jersey Democratic Representative Frank Pallone, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, raised $130,700 from medical professionals and $66,500 from drug companies, which together represented nearly 13 percent of his total campaign contributions. Democrat Anna Eshoo, who chairs that committee’s health subcommittee and is a vocal defender of her Silicon Valley district’s biotech companies, raised $115,700 from Big Pharma and $106,350 from medical professionals. That is fully 26 percent of her campaign contributions so far this year. Drug and biotechnology companies are concentrated in areas (eastern Pennsylvania/New Jersey, Boston, and San Francisco/Silicon Valley) that are heavily Democratic.
Innovation DA COVID has kept patents and innovation strong, but continued protection is key to innovation by incentivizing biomedical research – it’s also crucial to preventing counterfeit medicines, economic collapse, and fatal diseases, which independently turns case. Macdole and Ezell 4-29: Jaci Mcdole and Stephen Ezell {Jaci McDole is a senior policy analyst covering intellectual property (IP) and innovation policy at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF). She focuses on IP and its correlations to global innovation and trade. McDole holds a double BA in Music Business and Radio-Television with a minor in Marketing, an MS in Education, and a JD with a specialization in intellectual property (Southern Illinois University Carbondale). McDole comes to ITIF from the Institute for Intellectual Property Research, an organization she co-founded to study and further robust global IP policies. Stephen Ezell is vice president, global innovation policy, at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF). He comes to ITIF from Peer Insight, an innovation research and consulting firm he cofounded in 2003 to study the practice of innovation in service industries. At Peer Insight, Ezell led the Global Service Innovation Consortium, published multiple research papers on service innovation, and researched national service innovation policies being implemented by governments worldwide. Prior to forming Peer Insight, Ezell worked in the New Service Development group at the NASDAQ Stock Market, where he spearheaded the creation of the NASDAQ Market Intelligence Desk and the NASDAQ Corporate Services Network, services for NASDAQ-listed corporations. Previously, Ezell cofounded two successful innovation ventures, the high-tech services firm Brivo Systems and Lynx Capital, a boutique investment bank. Ezell holds a B.S. from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, with an honors certificate from Georgetown’s Landegger International Business Diplomacy program.}, 21 - ("Ten Ways Ip Has Enabled Innovations That Have Helped Sustain The World Through The Pandemic," Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, 4-29-2021, https://itif.org/publications/2021/04/29/ten-ways-ip-has-enabled-innovations-have-helped-sustain-world-through)//marlborough-wr/ To better understand the role of IP in enabling solutions related to COVID-19 challenges, this report relies on 10 case studies drawn from a variety of nations, technical fields, and firm sizes. This is but a handful of the thousands of IP-enabled innovations that have sprung forth over the past year in an effort to meet the tremendous challenges brought on by COVID-19 globally. From a paramedic in Mexico to a veteran vaccine manufacturing company in India and a tech start-up in Estonia to a U.S.-based company offering workplace Internet of Things (IoT) services, small and large organizations alike are working to combat the pandemic. Some have adapted existing innovations, while others have developed novel solutions. All are working to take the world out of the pandemic and into the future. The case studies are: Bharat Biotech: Covaxin Gilead: Remdesivir LumiraDX: SARS-COV-2 Antigen POC Test Teal Bio: Teal Bio Respirator XE Ingeniería Médica: CápsulaXE Surgical Theater: Precision VR Tombot: Jennie Starship Technologies: Autonomous Delivery Robots Triax Technologies: Proximity Trace Zoom: Video Conferencing As the case studies show, IP is critical to enabling innovation. Policymakers around the world need to ensure robust IP protections are—and remain—in place if they wish their citizens to have safe and innovative solutions to health care, workplace, and societal challenges in the future. THE ROLE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY IN RandD-INTENSIVE INDUSTRIES Intangible assets, such as IP rights, comprised approximately 84 percent of the corporate value of SandP 500 companies in 2018.4 For start-ups, this means much of the capital needed to operate is directly related to IP (see Teal Bio case study for more on this). IP also plays an especially important role for RandD-intensive industries.5 To take the example of the biopharmaceutical industry, it is characterized by high-risk, time-consuming, and expensive processes including basic research, drug discovery, pre-clinical trials, three stages of human clinical trials, regulatory review, and post-approval research and safety monitoring. The drug development process spans an average of 11.5 to 15 years.6 For every 5,000 to 10,000 compounds screened on average during the basic research and drug discovery phases, approximately 250 molecular compounds, or 2.5 to 5 percent, make it to preclinical testing. Out of those 250 molecular compounds, approximately 5 make it to clinical testing. That is, 0.05 to 0.1 percent of drugs make it from basic research into clinical trials. Of those rare few which make it to clinical testing, less than 12 percent are ultimately approved for use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).7 In addition to high risks, drug development is costly, and the expenses associated with it are increasing. A 2019 report by the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions concluded that since 2010 the average cost of bringing a new drug to market increased by 67 percent.8 Numerous studies have examined the substantial cost of biopharmaceutical RandD, and most confirm investing in new drug development requires $1.7 billion to $3.2 billion up front on average.9 A 2018 study by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness found similar risks and figures for vaccines, stating, “In general, vaccine development from discovery to licensure can cost billions of dollars, can take over 10 years to complete, and has an average 94 percent chance of failure.”10 Yet, a 2010 study found that 80 percent of new drugs—that is, the less than 12 percent ultimately approved by the FDA—made less than their capitalized RandD costs.11 Another study found that only 1 percent (maybe three new drugs each year) of the most successful 10 percent of FDA approved drugs generate half of the profits of the entire drug industry.12 To say the least, biopharmaceutical RandD represents a high-stakes, long-term endeavor with precarious returns. Without IP protection, biopharmaceutical manufacturers have little incentive to take the risks necessary to engage in the RandD process because they would be unable to recoup even a fraction of the costs incurred. Diminished revenues also result in reduced investments in RandD which means less research into cancer drugs, Alzheimer cures, vaccines, and more. IP rights give life-sciences enterprises the confidence needed to undertake the difficult, risky, and expensive process of life-sciences innovation secure in the knowledge they can capture a share of the gains from their innovations, which is indispensable not only to recouping the up-front RandD costs of a given drug, but which can generate sufficient profits to enable investment in future generations of biomedical innovation and thus perpetuate the enterprises into the future.13 THE IMPORTANCE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY TO INNOVATION Although anti-IP proponents have attacked biopharmaceutical manufacturers particularly hard, the reality is all IP-protected innovations are at risk if these rights are ignored, or vitiated. Certain arguments have shown a desire for the term “COVID-19 innovations” to include everything from vaccines, therapeutics, diagnostics, and PPE to biotechnology, AI-related data, and educational materials.14 This could potentially open the floodgates to invalidate IP protection on many of the innovations highlighted in this report. However, much of the current discussion concerning IP focuses almost entirely on litigation fears or RandD incentives. Although RandD is an important aspect of IP, as previously mentioned, these discussions ignore the fact that IP protection can be—and often is—used for other purposes, including generating initial capital to create a company and begin manufacturing and, more importantly, using licensing agreements and IP to track the supply chain and ensure quality control of products. This report highlights but a handful of the thousands of IP-enabled innovations that have sprung forth over the past year in an effort to meet the tremendous challenges brought on by COVID-19 globally. In 2018, Forbes identified counterfeiting as the largest criminal enterprise in the world.15 The global struggle against counterfeit and non-regulated products, which has hit Latin America particularly hard during the pandemic, proves the need for safety and quality assurance in supply chains.16 Some communities already ravaged by COVID-19 are seeing higher mortality rates related to counterfeit vaccines, therapeutics, PPE, and cleaning and sanitizing products.17 Polish authorities discovered vials of antiwrinkle treatment labeled as COVID-19 vaccines. 18 In Mexico, fake vaccines sold for approximately $1,000 per dose.19 Chinese and South African police seized thousands of counterfeit vaccine doses from warehouses and manufacturing plants.20 Meanwhile, dozens of websites worldwide claiming to sell vaccines or be affiliated with vaccine manufacturers have been taken down.21 But the problem is not limited to biopharmaceuticals. The National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center has recovered $48 million worth of counterfeit PPE and other products.22 Collaborative efforts between law enforcement and manufacturers have kept numerous counterfeits from reaching the population. In countries with strong IP protection, the chances of counterfeit products reaching the market are significantly lower. This is largely because counterfeiting tends to be an IP-related issue, and these countries generally provide superior means of tracking the supply chain through trademarks, trade secrets, and licensing agreements. This enables greater quality control and helps manufacturers maintain a level of public confidence in their products. By controlling the flow of knowledge associated with IP, voluntary licensing agreements provide innovators with opportunities to collaborate, while ensuring their partners are properly equipped and capable of producing quality products. Throughout this difficult time, the world has seen unexpected collaborations, especially between biopharmaceutical companies worldwide such as Gilead and Eva Pharma or Bharat Biotech and Ocugen, Inc. Throughout history, and most significantly in the nineteenth century through the widespread development of patent systems and the ensuing Industrial Revolution, IP has contributed toward greater economic growth.23 This is promising news as the world struggles for economic recovery. A 2021 joint study by the EU Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) and European Patent Office (EPO) shows a strong, positive correlation between IP rights and economic performance.24 It states that “IP-owning firms represent a significantly larger proportion of economic activity and employment across Europe,” with IP-intensive industries contributing to 45 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) (€6.6 trillion; US$7.9 trillion).25 The study also shows 38.9 percent of employment is directly or indirectly attributed to IP-intensive industries, and IP generates higher wages and greater revenue per employee, especially for small-to-medium-sized enterprises.26 That concords with the United States, where the Department of Commerce estimated that IP-intensive industries support at least 45 million jobs and contribute more than $6 trillion dollars to, or 38.2 percent of, GDP.27 In 2020, global patent filings through the World Intellectual Property Organization’s (WIPO) Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) system reached a record 275,900 filings amidst the pandemic, growing 4 percent from 2019.28 The top-four nations, which accounted for 180,530 of the patent applications, were China, the United States, Japan, and Korea, respectively.29 While several countries saw an increase in patent filings, Saudi Arabia and Malaysia both saw significant increases in the number of annual applications, with the top two filing growths of 73 percent and 26 percent, respectively.30 The COVID-19 pandemic slowed a lot of things, but it certainly couldn’t stop innovation. There are at least five principal benefits strong IP rights can generate, for both developing and developed countries alike.31 First, stronger IP protection spurs the virtuous cycle of innovation by increasing the appropriability of returns, enabling economic gain and catalyzing economic growth. Second, through patents—which require innovators to disclose certain knowledge as a condition of protection—knowledge spillovers build a platform of knowledge that enables other innovators. For instance, studies have found that the rate of return to society from corporate RandD and innovation activities is at least twice the estimated returns that each company itself receives.32 Third, countries with robust IP can operate more efficiently and productively by using IP to determine product quality and reduce transaction costs. Fourth, trade and foreign direct investment enabled and encouraged by strong IP protection offered to enterprises from foreign countries facilitates an accumulation of knowledge capital within the destination economy. That matters when foreign sources of technology account for over 90 percent of productivity growth in most countries.33 There’s also evidence suggesting that developing nations with stronger IP protections enjoy the earlier introduction of innovative new medicines.34 And fifth, strong IP boosts exports, including in developing countries.35 Research shows a positive correlation between stronger IP protection and exports from developing countries as well as faster growth rates of certain industries.36 The following case studies illustrate these benefits of IP and how they’ve enabled innovative solutions to help global society navigate the COVID-19 pandemic. This sets a precedent that spills over to all future diseases – Hopkins 21: Jared S. Hopkins {Jared S. Hopkins is a New York-based reporter for The Wall Street Journal covering the pharmaceutical industry, including companies such as Pfizer Inc. and Merck and Co. He previously was a health-care reporter at Bloomberg News and an investigative reporter at the Chicago Tribune. Jared started his career at The Times-News in Twin Falls, Idaho covering politics. In 2014, he was a finalist for the Livingston Award For Young Journalists for an investigation into charities founded by professional athletes. In 2011, he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Investigative Reporting for a series about neglect at a residential facility for disabled kids. Jared graduated from the Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland-College Park with a bachelor's degree in journalism}, 21 - ("U.S. Support for Patent Waiver Unlikely to Cost Covid-19 Vaccine Makers in Short Term ," WSJ, 5-7-2021, https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-support-for-patent-waiver-unlikely-to-cost-covid-19-vaccine-makers-in-short-term-11620414260)//marlborough-wr/ The Biden administration’s unexpected support for temporarily waiving Covid-19 vaccine patents won’t have an immediate financial impact on the companies making the shots, industry officials and analysts said. Yet the decision could mark a shift in Washington’s longstanding support of the industry’s valuable intellectual property, patent-law experts said. A waiver, if it does go into effect, may pose long-term risks to the vaccine makers, analysts said. Moderna Inc., MRNA -4.12 Pfizer Inc. PFE -3.10 and other vaccine makers weren’t counting on sales from the developing countries that would gain access to the vaccine technology, analysts said. If patents and other crucial product information behind the technology is made available, it would take at least several months before shots were produced, industry officials said. Yet long-term Covid-19 sales could take a hit if other companies and countries gained access to the technologies and figured out how to use it. Western drugmakers could also confront competition sooner for other medicines they are hoping to make using the technologies. A World Trade Organization waiver could also set a precedent for waiving patents for other medicines, a long-sought goal of some developing countries, patient groups and others to try to reduce the costs of prescription drugs. “It sets a tremendous precedent of waiving IP rights that’s likely going to come up in future pandemics or in other serious diseases,” said David Silverstein, a patent lawyer at Axinn, Veltrop and Harkrider LLP who advises drugmakers. “Other than that, this is largely symbolic.” The DA outweighs on time-frame and magnitude: Need to sustain effective research now to avoid future pandemics Lander 8/4/21 Eric Lander, President Biden’s Science Advisory and Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy) “Opinion: As bad as Covid-19 has been, a future pandemic could be even worse—unless we act now” 8/4/21, The Washington Post RM Coronavirus vaccines can end the current pandemic if enough people choose to protect themselves and their loved ones by getting vaccinated. But in the years to come, we will still need to defend against a pandemic side effect: collective amnesia. As public health emergencies recede, societies often quickly forget their experiences — and fail to prepare for future challenges. For pandemics, such a course would be disastrous. New infectious diseases have been emerging at an accelerating pace, and they are spreading faster. Our federal government is responsible for defending the United States against future threats. That’s why President Biden has asked Congress to fund his plan to build on current scientific progress to keep new infectious-disease threats from turning into pandemics like covid-19. As the president’s science adviser, I know what’s becoming possible. For the first time in our history, we have an opportunity not just to refill our stockpiles but also to transform our capabilities. However, if we don’t start preparing now for future pandemics, the window for action will close. Covid-19 has been a catastrophe: The toll in the United States alone is more than 614,000 lives and has been estimated to exceed $16 trillion, with disproportionate impact on vulnerable and marginalized communities. But a future pandemic could be even worse — unless we take steps now. It’s important to remember that the virus behind covid-19 is far less deadly than the 1918 influenza. The virus also belongs to a well-understood family, coronaviruses. It was possible to design vaccines within days of knowing the virus’s genetic code because 20 years of basic scientific research had revealed which protein to target and how to stabilize it. And while the current virus spins off variants, its mutation rate is slower than that of most viruses. Unfortunately, most of the 26 families of viruses that infect humans are less well understood or harder to control. We have a great deal of work still ahead. The development of mRNA vaccine technology — thanks to more than a decade of foresighted basic research — was a game-changer. It shortened the time needed to design and test vaccines to less than a year — far faster than for any previous vaccine. And it’s been surprisingly effective against covid-19. Still, there’s much more to do. We don’t yet know how mRNA vaccines will perform against other viruses down the road. And when the next pandemic breaks out, we’ll want to be able to respond even faster. Fortunately, the scientific community has been developing a bold plan to keep future viruses from becoming pandemics. Here are a few of the goals we should shoot for: The capability to design, test and approve safe and effective vaccines within 100 days of detecting a pandemic threat (for covid-19, that would have meant May 2020); manufacture enough doses to supply the world within 200 days; and speed vaccination campaigns by replacing sterile injections with skin patches. Diagnostics simple and cheap enough for daily home testing to limit spread and target medical care. Early-warning systems to spot new biological threats anywhere in the world soon after they emerge and monitor them thereafter. We desperately need to strengthen our public health system — from expanding the workforce to modernizing labs and data systems — including to ensure that vulnerable populations are protected. And we need to coordinate actions with our international partners, because pandemics know no borders. These goals are ambitious, but they’re feasible — provided the work is managed with the seriousness, focus and accountability of NASA’s Apollo Program, which sent humans to the moon. Importantly, these capabilities won’t just prepare us for future pandemics; they’ll also improve public health and medical care for infectious diseases today. Preparing for threats is a core national responsibility. That’s why our government invests heavily in missile defense and counterterrorism. We need to similarly protect the nation against biological threats, which range from the ongoing risk of pandemics to the possibility of deliberate use of bioweapons. Pandemics cause massive death and disruption. From a financial standpoint, they’re also astronomically expensive. If, as might be expected from history and current trends, we suffered a pandemic of the current scale every two decades, the annualized cost would exceed $500 billion per year. Investing a much smaller amount to avert this toll is an economic and moral imperative. The White House will put forward a detailed plan this month to ensure that the United States can fully prepare before the next outbreak. It’s hard to imagine a higher economic or human return on national investment.
AT COVID aff
No inherency – governments and the WTO are already reducing IP protections for medicines related to COVID-19. WTO No Date WTO, no date, "TRIPS, the intellectual property system and COVID-19," No Publication, https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/trips_e/trips_and_covid19_e.htm accessed 8/10/2021JH TRIPS, the intellectual property system and COVID-19 ¶The way in which an intellectual property (IP) system is designed at national or regional levels – and how effectively it is put to work - can be a significant factor in facilitating access to existing technologies and in supporting the creation, manufacturing and dissemination of new technologies, such as medicines, vaccines and medical devices, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This question – the relationship of IP to the pandemic response – has sparked a vigorous debate within and beyond the WTO, and is a high priority for technical assistance and policy support for WTO members. This page gives access to background information and current WTO documents (including members’ proposals) on this urgent question. ¶Introduction ¶From the beginning of the pandemic, the pressing need was clear for both the development of new vaccines and treatments, and access to these medicines for all – a global challenge unprecedented in both scope and urgency. ¶Governments and other stakeholders have therefore focused on how innovation mechanisms and tools for enhancing access to medical technologies can contribute to the pandemic response, well beyond a reliance on “business as usual”. This has led to a range of initiatives by international organizations, governments and private actors for the voluntary sharing, pooling or non-assertion of IP rights (IPRs), responding to the spirit of collaboration that dominates the global effort to tackle the pandemic. ¶A range of pro-health policy options and interventions are also available for WTO members under the TRIPS Agreement, as implemented in domestic law. ¶Transparency and the availability of up-to-date information on IP and COVID-19 respond to an immediate and critical need. They contribute to the empirical basis that is essential for policy-making in a rapidly evolving trade landscape in the mutual interest of all stakeholders, including governments and economic operators. ¶In furtherance of this objective, the following sections provide access to useful WTO and other resources that specifically address the interface between IPRs and COVID-19, as well as to the work of the TRIPS Council ¶Work of the TRIPS Council ¶Members have exchanged information and experiences relating to IP measures taken in the context of COVID-19 at the TRIPS Council, and have considered members’ proposals. The interface between IPRs and COVID-19 has been considered in TRIPS Council meetings since July 2020, supported by communications to the TRIPS Council. ¶WTO resources ¶Members have exchanged information and experiences relating to IP measures taken in the context of COVID-19 at the TRIPS Council, and have considered members’ proposals. The interface between IPRs and COVID-19 has been considered in TRIPS Council meetings since July 2020, supported by communications to the TRIPS Council. ¶COVID-19 and world trade ¶COVID-19: Measures regarding trade-related intellectual property rights ¶A non-exhaustive list has been compiled by the WTO Secretariat from official sources and confirmed with WTO members concerned. It represents an informal situation report and an attempt to provide transparency with respect to measures regarding trade-related IPRs taken by WTO members in the context of the COVID-19 crisis. The list is regularly updated. ¶Information Note: The TRIPS Agreement and COVID-19¶This note discusses the role and some of the key contributions that the global IP system, including its policy options and flexibilities as implemented in domestic law, can make to address COVID-19. It also provides an overview of measures taken by members. ¶Information Note: How WTO members have used trade measures to expedite access to COVID-19 critical medical goods and services ¶This note on access to COVID-19 critical medical goods and services includes information on using IPRs and policy tools to facilitate innovation in and access to COVID-19-related technologies. ¶Information Note: Developing and delivering COVID-19 vaccines around the world ¶This note looks at issues with trade impact and discusses trade policy choices, including in the area of intellectual property rights, that may be considered along the vaccine value chain to support access to COVID-19 vaccines. ¶An integrated health, trade and IP approach to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic ¶A standalone section on COVID-19 in the 2020 study jointly published by the World Health Organization (WHO), World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and WTO, Promoting Access to Medical Technologies and Innovation: Intersections between public health, intellectual property and trade (second edition), maps the multiple challenges posed by the pandemic in relation to the integrated health, trade and IP policy frameworks set out in the study. ¶Working Paper: Patent-related actions taken in WTO members in response to the COVID-19 pandemic¶This working paper provides an overview of the patent landscape of medical treatments and technologies related to COVID-19, and of the patent status of two investigational medical treatments: remdesivir and lopinavir/ritonavir. It presents various patent-related actions taken by legislators, policymakers, industry sectors and civil society organizations in members since the outbreak. Furthermore, it elaborates on patent-related policy options provided by the TRIPS Agreement, and members' national implementation and utilization of these options in their response to the COVID-19 pandemic. 2. No inherency - The Covid vaccine waiver will pass in the status quo—many countries are switching their positions now . Meyer 6/10 David Meyer senior writer for fortune, 6/10 - ("COVID-19 vaccine-patent pressure grows in Europe as lawmakers back temporary waiver," Fortune, 6-10-2021, accessed 7-5-2021, https://fortune.com/2021/06/10/covid-vaccine-patent-waiver-european-parliament-commission-wto/)//ML The temporary suspension of COVID vaccine patents—a move that's intended to help expand manufacturing and speed up the global vaccination drive, thus shortening the pandemic—was originally proposed by South Africa and India last year. Over recent months, it has gained new supporters like the World Health Organization (WHO), the Pope, and, crucially, the Biden administration.¶ However, Europe—home to major players such as BioNTech and AstraZeneca—has resisted the waiver. Just last week, the European Commission submitted an alternative plan to the World Trade Organization (WTO), proposing other measures such as limits on export restrictions, and the compulsory licensing of the patents in some circumstances.¶ That doesn't go far enough, said members of the European Parliament on Thursday, as it passed an amendment calling for a temporary waiver of the WTO's TRIPS Agreement, the global intellectual-property rulebook, in relation to COVID-19 vaccines, treatments, and equipment.¶ The amendment passed by 355 votes to 263, with 71 abstentions. The European Parliament cannot tell the Commission to change its influential tune on the issue, but the vote sent a strong political message nonetheless: Europe, with its many national votes at the WTO, is gradually shifting to the pro-waiver camp.¶ Within the Parliament—the only EU lawmaking institution whose members are directly elected by citizens—the split over the issue has largely followed left-right lines, with leftists such as the Socialists and Democrats (SandD, Parliament's second-biggest voting bloc) backing the waiver and those on the right, such as the European People's Party (EPP, the biggest bloc), opposing it.¶ "With today’s vote, the European Parliament calls on the Commission to finally do the right thing and save lives by supporting the lifting of patents for COVID-19 vaccines and medical equipment," said Kathleen Van Brempt, the SandD's lead negotiator on the subject, in a statement after the vote. "The TRIPS waiver may not prove to be a miracle solution, but it is one of the essential building blocks of a strong global vaccination campaign. Exceptional situations call for exceptional measures.¶ "The alternative proposal submitted by the European Commission to the WTO falls short in the face of the epochal challenge we are facing," she added.¶ But it is not just the European Commission that is becoming more isolated on the issue. Germany, too, is increasingly lonely in its opposition to the waiver.¶ French President Emmanuel Macron, who has previously sided with Germany, traveled to South Africa a couple of weeks ago to discuss the waiver with President Cyril Ramaphosa. On Wednesday, just ahead of the G7 summit, he flipped and joined the patent-suspension camp. That means at least two G7 leaders (also including U.S. President Joe Biden) now favor the waiver.¶ Add to that the fact that the WTO agreed on Wednesday to fully debate the waiver—a step that the EU and some other countries had previously resisted—and it seems the tide may be turning.¶ There is still a way to go, though. World Bank President David Malpass slammed the waiver idea on Wednesday, saying “it would run the risk of reducing the innovation and the RandD” in the pharmaceutical sector. (Malpass, a Trump appointee, is therefore now in opposition to the current White House.)¶ Impact D- covid over soon Pandemic will be over in a year Reuters, 9-23, 21, Moderna chief executive sees pandemic over in a year – newspaper, https://news.trust.org/item/20210923052810-q5d40 ZURICH, Sept 23 (Reuters) - Moderna Inc Chief Executive Stéphane Bancel thinks the coronavirus pandemic could be over in a year as increased vaccine production ensures global supplies, he told the Swiss newspaper Neue Zuercher Zeitung. "If you look at the industry-wide expansion of production capacities over the past six months, enough doses should be available by the middle of next year so that everyone on this earth can be vaccinated. Boosters should also be possible to the extent required," he told the newspaper in an interview. Vaccinations would soon be available even for infants, he said. "Those who do not get vaccinated will immunize themselves naturally, because the Delta variant is so contagious. In this way we will end up in a situation similar to that of the flu. You can either get vaccinated and have a good winter. Or you don't do it and risk getting sick and possibly even ending up in hospital." Asked if that meant a return to normal in the second half of next year, he said: "As of today, in a year, I assume." Bancel said he expected governments to approve booster shots for people already vaccinated because patients at risk who were vaccinated last autumn "undoubtedly" needed a refresher. Its booster shot had half the dose of the original dose, which meant more of them would be available. "The volume of vaccine is the biggest limiting factor. With half the dose, we would have 3 billion doses available worldwide for the coming year instead of just 2 billion," he said. The composition of the booster shot remains the same as the original for this year because Moderna had not had enough time to change it. "We are currently testing Delta-optimized variants in clinical trials. They will form the basis for the booster vaccination for 2022. We are also trying out Delta plus Beta, the next mutation that scientists believe is likely." Moderna can use existing production lines for the new variants as for the original COVID-19 vaccine. The price of vaccination will stay the same, he said. (Reporting by Michael Shields Editing by Robert Birsel)
10/30/21
SeptOct - Vaccine Equity CP
Tournament: St Marks | Round: 5 | Opponent: Christopher Robertson | Judge: Danielle Dosch Harvard Westlake CR v Marlborough JK Advantage CP Counterplan text: States should increase Covax support, prioritise trade facilitation, commit to aid for trade, and invest in preparedness. Gonzalez 21 Violeta Gonzalez Behar is head of partnerships, communications, and resource mobilization at the Enhanced Integrated Framework, a sustainable trade multilateral partnership at the World Trade Organization. In this capacity, she leads a global team in helping EIF build strategic partnerships, communicate results, and secure financing for operations in 51 developing economies. “Opinion: 4 ways to promote vaccine equity through trade”. 8-1-2021. Devex. https://www.devex.com/news/opinion-4-ways-to-promote-vaccine-equity-through-trade-100457. Accessed 8-12-2021; MJen Vaccine inequity is one of the most striking — but solvable — challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. It also provides a wake-up call for what can happen when so-called least-developed countries, or LDCs, are not able to participate fully in global trading systems. By supporting programs such as COVAX, advancing trade facilitation efforts, and directing more aid toward trade initiatives such as Aid for Trade, the global community can help right this imbalance. As of Monday, only 1.1 of people in low-income countries had received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose. This is making it harder to battle a third wave of infections, as the highly transmissible delta variant spreads across many nations. In the World Health Organization’s Africa region — where a high number of LDCs are located — COVID-19 fatalities surged 44.2 over one week in July. The coronavirus is devastating many LDCs’ already fragile economies and causing poverty and inequality to rise. Without equitable access to vaccines, global economic recovery cannot be sustained and progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals will be derailed. While trade alone cannot eradicate vaccine unequity or its negative consequences for the economy and vulnerable groups, it has a powerful contribution to make. Here are four actions that would make an impact:
Increase COVAX support Vaccine equity can only be achieved if the global community eschews vaccine nationalism. High-resource countries should ramp up donations through the vaccine-sharing initiative COVAX and commit to securing a swift, workable resolution to ongoing debates around technology transfers and intellectual property waivers. While countries in the G-7 group of nations have pledged to increase their support for COVAX, the initiative has faced hurdles in the form of supply bottlenecks, export restrictions, and logistical weaknesses. Many currently available COVID-19 vaccines have short shelf lives and must be stored at low temperatures. LDCs can only benefit from donated doses if they have fast and efficient processing at their borders, modern transportation systems, and access to cold chain infrastructure. 2. Prioritize trade facilitation Accelerating implementation of the World Trade Organization’s 2017 Trade Facilitation Agreement is critical for helping LDCs overcome these challenges. A total of 154 WTO members now support the agreement, which pledges investment in the simplification and modernization of the movement, release, and customs clearance of goods globally. It also aims to help low-income countries overcome these same barriers through technical assistance and capacity building. The Global Alliance for Trade Facilitation has made good progress in identifying barriers to vaccine equity and introducing solutions. In Mozambique, for example, the alliance is working to digitalize pre-shipment authorization for vaccine imports — a process that can take as long as two weeks, during which vaccine doses must be kept in storage. This digitalization should help Mozambique decrease wait times, improve shipment traceability, and reduce storage and inventory management costs. Yet more work remains to help governments overcome challenges associated with implementing the Trade Facilitation Agreement, such as changing domestic legislation and involving the private sector. Lower-income countries and LDCs have flagged a need around human resources and training, legal assistance, and the acquisition of information and communication technologies. 3. Commit to Aid for Trade For LDCs to participate fairly in global vaccine supply chains — as importers or exporters of inputs and finished products — they need financial and technical assistance to strengthen their productive capacity, streamline their cross-border standards and processes, and improve their logistics infrastructure and technological know-how. The Aid for Trade initiative exists to provide that support — but can only deliver if donor countries maintain or increase their official development assistance, or ODA. Preliminary figures from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development show that Development Assistance Committee members expanded their ODA by $10 billion between 2019 and 2020, mostly as part of their COVID-19 response. However, with several government donors having reprogrammed their aid budgets to focus on immediate health priorities, fears are growing that their overall ODA may also be slashed — and, with this, their support for Aid for Trade. The generosity of some countries provides hope. Norway, for example, recently stepped up to help plug such gaps with 45 million Norwegian kroner of additional funding for the WTO-backed Enhanced Integrated Framework, a global Aid for Trade program that aims to reduce poverty. 4. Invest in preparedness In 2019, only $374 million — or less than 1 — of the world’s total development assistance for health was spent on pandemic preparedness. Within months, the consequences of that underinvestment became clear. Integrating lower-income countries and LDCs into global and regional pharmaceutical value chains is vital for ensuring the world is better prepared next time. Directing increased aid to help these countries become producers and exporters of medical equipment and vaccines has never been more needed. LDCs would not only receive more of the vaccines and therapeutics they need now but could actively contribute to the global response when the next pandemic inevitably hits. A waiver for Covid takes too long---only the CP solves. Fabricius 6/25 Peter Fabricius institute for security services consultant, 6/20 - ("South Africa: Is Ramaphosa Tripping Over a TRIPS Waiver?," allAfrica, 6/25/2021, accessed 6-30-2021, https://allafrica.com/stories/202106260001.html)//ML His fervour is prompting some suspicion that the waiver campaign is an ideological issue for South Africa and others on the left - who have always been suspicious of big pharma - rather than an objective solution to a crisis. That's because a TRIPS waiver cannot possibly rescue Africa from the immediate grips of the pandemic.¶ Even the mRNA project in South Africa would take at least around 12 months before manufacture can begin, WHO Chief Scientist Soumya Swaminathan said. And this would be with voluntary licensing and full technological cooperation and training from the patents' owners. Manufacturing vaccines from scratch and without that cooperation through a TRIPS waiver would take much longer.¶ The only immediate remedy is a vigorous campaign to pressure rich countries to donate vaccines¶ Yogesh Pai, Assistant Professor at the National Law University in Delhi, said the TRIPS waiver proposal was 'simplistic' in assuming that allowing the formulae of companies making vaccines to be copied would automatically enable other manufacturers to produce COVID-19 vaccines quickly.¶ Pai said most complex technologies, such as vaccines, comprised not only the knowledge, which is patented to prevent copying. It also involved undisclosed information and know-how about quality control measures for production and clinical data required for regulatory clearances.¶ An intellectual property waiver wouldn't give another company access to this deeper level of know-how. Only a cooperative agreement in which the technology owner helped the new manufacturer produce the vaccines could do this, Pai suggested.¶ Prashant Yadav, an expert on medical supply chains at Harvard Medical School, told ISS Today that it would probably take two to three years to produce a vaccine via a TRIPS waiver. First, the waiver would need to be secured, and then the necessary processes worked out without the help of the original developer.¶ Can Africa wait that long? At the launch of the mRNA project this week, Michael Ryan, Head of the WHO's Health Emergencies Programme, stressed that manufacturing COVID-19 vaccines in Africa, while commendable, wouldn't address the immediate crisis. The only solution was for rich countries to stop hoarding vaccines immediately. 'It will be a catastrophic moral failure at global level if we do not do that,' Ryan warned.¶ Yadav says the urgent strategy should be reallocating doses purchased by countries that don't need them and expanding vaccine production through voluntary licensing and tech transfer from the originator companies.¶ Of course, Ramaphosa could be right in suspecting that rich countries aren't altruistic enough to donate their 'surplus' vaccines, and so Africa and the rest of the global south must become more self-reliant.
And it competes off the net benefit: the perm wouldn’t solve because it would still link to the Innovation DA.
Innovation DA COVID has kept patents and innovation strong, but continued protection is key to innovation by incentivizing biomedical research – it’s also crucial to preventing counterfeit medicines, economic collapse, and fatal diseases, which independently turns case. Macdole and Ezell 4-29: Jaci Mcdole and Stephen Ezell {Jaci McDole is a senior policy analyst covering intellectual property (IP) and innovation policy at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF). She focuses on IP and its correlations to global innovation and trade. McDole holds a double BA in Music Business and Radio-Television with a minor in Marketing, an MS in Education, and a JD with a specialization in intellectual property (Southern Illinois University Carbondale). McDole comes to ITIF from the Institute for Intellectual Property Research, an organization she co-founded to study and further robust global IP policies. Stephen Ezell is vice president, global innovation policy, at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF). He comes to ITIF from Peer Insight, an innovation research and consulting firm he cofounded in 2003 to study the practice of innovation in service industries. At Peer Insight, Ezell led the Global Service Innovation Consortium, published multiple research papers on service innovation, and researched national service innovation policies being implemented by governments worldwide. Prior to forming Peer Insight, Ezell worked in the New Service Development group at the NASDAQ Stock Market, where he spearheaded the creation of the NASDAQ Market Intelligence Desk and the NASDAQ Corporate Services Network, services for NASDAQ-listed corporations. Previously, Ezell cofounded two successful innovation ventures, the high-tech services firm Brivo Systems and Lynx Capital, a boutique investment bank. Ezell holds a B.S. from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, with an honors certificate from Georgetown’s Landegger International Business Diplomacy program.}, 21 - ("Ten Ways Ip Has Enabled Innovations That Have Helped Sustain The World Through The Pandemic," Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, 4-29-2021, https://itif.org/publications/2021/04/29/ten-ways-ip-has-enabled-innovations-have-helped-sustain-world-through)//marlborough-wr/ To better understand the role of IP in enabling solutions related to COVID-19 challenges, this report relies on 10 case studies drawn from a variety of nations, technical fields, and firm sizes. This is but a handful of the thousands of IP-enabled innovations that have sprung forth over the past year in an effort to meet the tremendous challenges brought on by COVID-19 globally. From a paramedic in Mexico to a veteran vaccine manufacturing company in India and a tech start-up in Estonia to a U.S.-based company offering workplace Internet of Things (IoT) services, small and large organizations alike are working to combat the pandemic. Some have adapted existing innovations, while others have developed novel solutions. All are working to take the world out of the pandemic and into the future. The case studies are: Bharat Biotech: Covaxin Gilead: Remdesivir LumiraDX: SARS-COV-2 Antigen POC Test Teal Bio: Teal Bio Respirator XE Ingeniería Médica: CápsulaXE Surgical Theater: Precision VR Tombot: Jennie Starship Technologies: Autonomous Delivery Robots Triax Technologies: Proximity Trace Zoom: Video Conferencing As the case studies show, IP is critical to enabling innovation. Policymakers around the world need to ensure robust IP protections are—and remain—in place if they wish their citizens to have safe and innovative solutions to health care, workplace, and societal challenges in the future. THE ROLE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY IN RandD-INTENSIVE INDUSTRIES Intangible assets, such as IP rights, comprised approximately 84 percent of the corporate value of SandP 500 companies in 2018.4 For start-ups, this means much of the capital needed to operate is directly related to IP (see Teal Bio case study for more on this). IP also plays an especially important role for RandD-intensive industries.5 To take the example of the biopharmaceutical industry, it is characterized by high-risk, time-consuming, and expensive processes including basic research, drug discovery, pre-clinical trials, three stages of human clinical trials, regulatory review, and post-approval research and safety monitoring. The drug development process spans an average of 11.5 to 15 years.6 For every 5,000 to 10,000 compounds screened on average during the basic research and drug discovery phases, approximately 250 molecular compounds, or 2.5 to 5 percent, make it to preclinical testing. Out of those 250 molecular compounds, approximately 5 make it to clinical testing. That is, 0.05 to 0.1 percent of drugs make it from basic research into clinical trials. Of those rare few which make it to clinical testing, less than 12 percent are ultimately approved for use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).7 In addition to high risks, drug development is costly, and the expenses associated with it are increasing. A 2019 report by the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions concluded that since 2010 the average cost of bringing a new drug to market increased by 67 percent.8 Numerous studies have examined the substantial cost of biopharmaceutical RandD, and most confirm investing in new drug development requires $1.7 billion to $3.2 billion up front on average.9 A 2018 study by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness found similar risks and figures for vaccines, stating, “In general, vaccine development from discovery to licensure can cost billions of dollars, can take over 10 years to complete, and has an average 94 percent chance of failure.”10 Yet, a 2010 study found that 80 percent of new drugs—that is, the less than 12 percent ultimately approved by the FDA—made less than their capitalized RandD costs.11 Another study found that only 1 percent (maybe three new drugs each year) of the most successful 10 percent of FDA approved drugs generate half of the profits of the entire drug industry.12 To say the least, biopharmaceutical RandD represents a high-stakes, long-term endeavor with precarious returns. Without IP protection, biopharmaceutical manufacturers have little incentive to take the risks necessary to engage in the RandD process because they would be unable to recoup even a fraction of the costs incurred. Diminished revenues also result in reduced investments in RandD which means less research into cancer drugs, Alzheimer cures, vaccines, and more. IP rights give life-sciences enterprises the confidence needed to undertake the difficult, risky, and expensive process of life-sciences innovation secure in the knowledge they can capture a share of the gains from their innovations, which is indispensable not only to recouping the up-front RandD costs of a given drug, but which can generate sufficient profits to enable investment in future generations of biomedical innovation and thus perpetuate the enterprises into the future.13 THE IMPORTANCE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY TO INNOVATION Although anti-IP proponents have attacked biopharmaceutical manufacturers particularly hard, the reality is all IP-protected innovations are at risk if these rights are ignored, or vitiated. Certain arguments have shown a desire for the term “COVID-19 innovations” to include everything from vaccines, therapeutics, diagnostics, and PPE to biotechnology, AI-related data, and educational materials.14 This could potentially open the floodgates to invalidate IP protection on many of the innovations highlighted in this report. However, much of the current discussion concerning IP focuses almost entirely on litigation fears or RandD incentives. Although RandD is an important aspect of IP, as previously mentioned, these discussions ignore the fact that IP protection can be—and often is—used for other purposes, including generating initial capital to create a company and begin manufacturing and, more importantly, using licensing agreements and IP to track the supply chain and ensure quality control of products. This report highlights but a handful of the thousands of IP-enabled innovations that have sprung forth over the past year in an effort to meet the tremendous challenges brought on by COVID-19 globally. In 2018, Forbes identified counterfeiting as the largest criminal enterprise in the world.15 The global struggle against counterfeit and non-regulated products, which has hit Latin America particularly hard during the pandemic, proves the need for safety and quality assurance in supply chains.16 Some communities already ravaged by COVID-19 are seeing higher mortality rates related to counterfeit vaccines, therapeutics, PPE, and cleaning and sanitizing products.17 Polish authorities discovered vials of antiwrinkle treatment labeled as COVID-19 vaccines. 18 In Mexico, fake vaccines sold for approximately $1,000 per dose.19 Chinese and South African police seized thousands of counterfeit vaccine doses from warehouses and manufacturing plants.20 Meanwhile, dozens of websites worldwide claiming to sell vaccines or be affiliated with vaccine manufacturers have been taken down.21 But the problem is not limited to biopharmaceuticals. The National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center has recovered $48 million worth of counterfeit PPE and other products.22 Collaborative efforts between law enforcement and manufacturers have kept numerous counterfeits from reaching the population. In countries with strong IP protection, the chances of counterfeit products reaching the market are significantly lower. This is largely because counterfeiting tends to be an IP-related issue, and these countries generally provide superior means of tracking the supply chain through trademarks, trade secrets, and licensing agreements. This enables greater quality control and helps manufacturers maintain a level of public confidence in their products. By controlling the flow of knowledge associated with IP, voluntary licensing agreements provide innovators with opportunities to collaborate, while ensuring their partners are properly equipped and capable of producing quality products. Throughout this difficult time, the world has seen unexpected collaborations, especially between biopharmaceutical companies worldwide such as Gilead and Eva Pharma or Bharat Biotech and Ocugen, Inc. Throughout history, and most significantly in the nineteenth century through the widespread development of patent systems and the ensuing Industrial Revolution, IP has contributed toward greater economic growth.23 This is promising news as the world struggles for economic recovery. A 2021 joint study by the EU Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) and European Patent Office (EPO) shows a strong, positive correlation between IP rights and economic performance.24 It states that “IP-owning firms represent a significantly larger proportion of economic activity and employment across Europe,” with IP-intensive industries contributing to 45 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) (€6.6 trillion; US$7.9 trillion).25 The study also shows 38.9 percent of employment is directly or indirectly attributed to IP-intensive industries, and IP generates higher wages and greater revenue per employee, especially for small-to-medium-sized enterprises.26 That concords with the United States, where the Department of Commerce estimated that IP-intensive industries support at least 45 million jobs and contribute more than $6 trillion dollars to, or 38.2 percent of, GDP.27 In 2020, global patent filings through the World Intellectual Property Organization’s (WIPO) Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) system reached a record 275,900 filings amidst the pandemic, growing 4 percent from 2019.28 The top-four nations, which accounted for 180,530 of the patent applications, were China, the United States, Japan, and Korea, respectively.29 While several countries saw an increase in patent filings, Saudi Arabia and Malaysia both saw significant increases in the number of annual applications, with the top two filing growths of 73 percent and 26 percent, respectively.30 The COVID-19 pandemic slowed a lot of things, but it certainly couldn’t stop innovation. There are at least five principal benefits strong IP rights can generate, for both developing and developed countries alike.31 First, stronger IP protection spurs the virtuous cycle of innovation by increasing the appropriability of returns, enabling economic gain and catalyzing economic growth. Second, through patents—which require innovators to disclose certain knowledge as a condition of protection—knowledge spillovers build a platform of knowledge that enables other innovators. For instance, studies have found that the rate of return to society from corporate RandD and innovation activities is at least twice the estimated returns that each company itself receives.32 Third, countries with robust IP can operate more efficiently and productively by using IP to determine product quality and reduce transaction costs. Fourth, trade and foreign direct investment enabled and encouraged by strong IP protection offered to enterprises from foreign countries facilitates an accumulation of knowledge capital within the destination economy. That matters when foreign sources of technology account for over 90 percent of productivity growth in most countries.33 There’s also evidence suggesting that developing nations with stronger IP protections enjoy the earlier introduction of innovative new medicines.34 And fifth, strong IP boosts exports, including in developing countries.35 Research shows a positive correlation between stronger IP protection and exports from developing countries as well as faster growth rates of certain industries.36 The following case studies illustrate these benefits of IP and how they’ve enabled innovative solutions to help global society navigate the COVID-19 pandemic. This sets a precedent that spills over to all future diseases – Hopkins 21: Jared S. Hopkins {Jared S. Hopkins is a New York-based reporter for The Wall Street Journal covering the pharmaceutical industry, including companies such as Pfizer Inc. and Merck and Co. He previously was a health-care reporter at Bloomberg News and an investigative reporter at the Chicago Tribune. Jared started his career at The Times-News in Twin Falls, Idaho covering politics. In 2014, he was a finalist for the Livingston Award For Young Journalists for an investigation into charities founded by professional athletes. In 2011, he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Investigative Reporting for a series about neglect at a residential facility for disabled kids. Jared graduated from the Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland-College Park with a bachelor's degree in journalism}, 21 - ("U.S. Support for Patent Waiver Unlikely to Cost Covid-19 Vaccine Makers in Short Term ," WSJ, 5-7-2021, https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-support-for-patent-waiver-unlikely-to-cost-covid-19-vaccine-makers-in-short-term-11620414260)//marlborough-wr/ The Biden administration’s unexpected support for temporarily waiving Covid-19 vaccine patents won’t have an immediate financial impact on the companies making the shots, industry officials and analysts said. Yet the decision could mark a shift in Washington’s longstanding support of the industry’s valuable intellectual property, patent-law experts said. A waiver, if it does go into effect, may pose long-term risks to the vaccine makers, analysts said. Moderna Inc., MRNA -4.12 Pfizer Inc. PFE -3.10 and other vaccine makers weren’t counting on sales from the developing countries that would gain access to the vaccine technology, analysts said. If patents and other crucial product information behind the technology is made available, it would take at least several months before shots were produced, industry officials said. Yet long-term Covid-19 sales could take a hit if other companies and countries gained access to the technologies and figured out how to use it. Western drugmakers could also confront competition sooner for other medicines they are hoping to make using the technologies. A World Trade Organization waiver could also set a precedent for waiving patents for other medicines, a long-sought goal of some developing countries, patient groups and others to try to reduce the costs of prescription drugs. “It sets a tremendous precedent of waiving IP rights that’s likely going to come up in future pandemics or in other serious diseases,” said David Silverstein, a patent lawyer at Axinn, Veltrop and Harkrider LLP who advises drugmakers. “Other than that, this is largely symbolic.”
IPR is key to stopping counterfeits. Kilbride 2020 Patrick, vice president of International Intellectual Property for the Global Intellectual Property Center at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, IP Watchdog, "Calls for WTO to Suspend IP Rights for Vaccine Innovation Would Jeopardize Incredible Progress" December 9, https://www.ipwatchdog.com/2020/12/09/calls-wto-suspend-ip-rights-vaccine-innovation-jeopardize-incredible-progress/id=128085/ Finally: A safe, legitimate marketplace. Patents facilitate a market for innovative medicines, throughout the development stage, as well as in commercialization. Licensing arrangements facilitate the types of collaborations that have proven so successful in 2020; they also ensure that third-party manufacturers are making, using, and selling COVID-19 solutions safely and ethically. Without it, counterfeiters and other bad actors could put shoddy, unreliable, and downright dangerous dupes on the market, all the while marketing them as legitimate products. It’s literally a matter of life and death: Thousands, if not millions, of people die each year at the hands of counterfeit drugs. 2. A TRIPS waiver for Covid takes too long---only vaccine donations solve. Fabricius 6/25 Peter Fabricius institute for security services consultant, 6/20 - ("South Africa: Is Ramaphosa Tripping Over a TRIPS Waiver?," allAfrica, 6/25/2021, accessed 6-30-2021, https://allafrica.com/stories/202106260001.html)//ML His fervour is prompting some suspicion that the waiver campaign is an ideological issue for South Africa and others on the left - who have always been suspicious of big pharma - rather than an objective solution to a crisis. That's because a TRIPS waiver cannot possibly rescue Africa from the immediate grips of the pandemic.¶ Even the mRNA project in South Africa would take at least around 12 months before manufacture can begin, WHO Chief Scientist Soumya Swaminathan said. And this would be with voluntary licensing and full technological cooperation and training from the patents' owners. Manufacturing vaccines from scratch and without that cooperation through a TRIPS waiver would take much longer.¶ The only immediate remedy is a vigorous campaign to pressure rich countries to donate vaccines¶ Yogesh Pai, Assistant Professor at the National Law University in Delhi, said the TRIPS waiver proposal was 'simplistic' in assuming that allowing the formulae of companies making vaccines to be copied would automatically enable other manufacturers to produce COVID-19 vaccines quickly.¶ Pai said most complex technologies, such as vaccines, comprised not only the knowledge, which is patented to prevent copying. It also involved undisclosed information and know-how about quality control measures for production and clinical data required for regulatory clearances.¶ An intellectual property waiver wouldn't give another company access to this deeper level of know-how. Only a cooperative agreement in which the technology owner helped the new manufacturer produce the vaccines could do this, Pai suggested.¶ Prashant Yadav, an expert on medical supply chains at Harvard Medical School, told ISS Today that it would probably take two to three years to produce a vaccine via a TRIPS waiver. First, the waiver would need to be secured, and then the necessary processes worked out without the help of the original developer.¶ Can Africa wait that long? At the launch of the mRNA project this week, Michael Ryan, Head of the WHO's Health Emergencies Programme, stressed that manufacturing COVID-19 vaccines in Africa, while commendable, wouldn't address the immediate crisis. The only solution was for rich countries to stop hoarding vaccines immediately. 'It will be a catastrophic moral failure at global level if we do not do that,' Ryan warned.¶ Yadav says the urgent strategy should be reallocating doses purchased by countries that don't need them and expanding vaccine production through voluntary licensing and tech transfer from the originator companies.¶ Of course, Ramaphosa could be right in suspecting that rich countries aren't altruistic enough to donate their 'surplus' vaccines, and so Africa and the rest of the global south must become more self-reliant. 3. No solvency – There is no IP barrier in most countries. The fact that they are not manufacturing vaccine shows that they can’t without compulsory licensing. Mercurio 21 Mercurio 2/12 - Bryan Mercurio; Chinese University of Hong Kong - Faculty of Law, ; 2-12-2021; "Wto Waiver From Intellectual Property Protection For Covid-19 Vaccines And Treatments: A Critical Review (February 12, 2021)”; Virginia Journal Of International Law Online (Forthcoming 2021), Available At Ssrn: Https://Ssrn.Com/Abstract=3789820 Or Http://Dx.Doi.Org/10.2139/Ssrn.3789820"; https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3789820, accessed 7-21-2021; JPark Second, the proposed waiver will do nothing to address the problem of lack of capacity or the transfer of technology and goodwill. Pharmaceutical companies have not applied for patents in the majority of developing countries – in such countries, any manufacturer is free to produce and market the vaccine inside the territory of that country or to export the vaccine to other countries where patents have not been filed.33 Patents cannot be the problem in the countries where no patent applications have been filed, but the lack of production in such countries points to the real problem – these countries lack manufacturing capacity and capability. While advanced pharmaceutical companies will have the technology, know-how and readiness to manufacture, store and transport complex vaccine formulations, such factories and logistics exist in only a handful of countries.34 Regardless of whether an IP waiver is granted, the remaining countries will be left without enhanced vaccine access and still reliant on imported supplies. With prices for the vaccine already very low, it is doubtful that generic suppliers will be able to provide the vaccine at significantly lower prices. Under such a scenario, the benefit of the waiver would go not to the countries in need but to the generic supplier who would not need to pay the licence fee or royalty to the innovator. Thus, the waiver would simply serve to benefit advanced generic manufacturers, most of which are located in a handful of countries, including China and Brazil as well as (unsurprisingly) India and South Africa. Countries would perhaps be better off obtaining the vaccine from suppliers that have negotiated a voluntary licence from the patent holder, as such licences include provisions for the transfer of technology, know-how and ongoing quality assurance support. 4. No solvency – the problem is supply. IP has already been voluntarily licensed. Tabarrok 21 - Alex Tabarrok (Bartley J. Madden Chair in Economics at the Mercatus Center and am a professor of economics at George Mason University). “Patents are Not the Problem!” Marginal Revolution. 6 May 2021. JDN. https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2021/05/ip-is-not-the-constraint.html For the last year and a half I have been shouting from the rooftops, “invest in capacity, build more factories, shore up the supply lines, spend billions to save trillions.” Fortunately, some boffins in the Biden administration have found a better way, “the US supports the waiver of IP protections on COVID-19 vaccines to help end the pandemic.”¶ Waive IP protections. So simple. Why didn’t I think of that???¶ Patents are not the problem. All of the vaccine manufacturers are trying to increase supply as quickly as possible. Billions of doses are being produced–more than ever before in the history of the world. Licenses are widely available. AstraZeneca have licensed their vaccine for production with manufactures around the world, including in India, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, China and South Africa. JandJ’s vaccine has been licensed for production by multiple firms in the United States as well as with firms in Spain, South Africa and France. Sputnik has been licensed for production by firms in India, China, South Korea, Brazil and pending EMA approval with firms in Germany and France. Sinopharm has been licensed in the UAE, Egypt and Bangladesh. Novavax has licensed its vaccine for production in South Korea, India, and Japan and it is desperate to find other licensees but technology transfer isn’t easy and there are limited supplies of raw materials:¶ Virtually overnight, Novavax set up a network of outside manufacturers more ambitious than one outside executive said he’s ever seen, but they struggled at times to transfer their technology there amid pandemic travel restrictions. They were kicked out of one factory by the same government that’s bankrolled their effort. Competing with larger competitors, they’ve found themselves short on raw materials as diverse as Chilean tree bark and bioreactor bags. They signed a deal with India’s Serum Institute to produce many of their COVAX doses but now face the realistic chance that even when Serum gets to full capacity — and they are behind — India’s government, dealing with the world’s worst active outbreak, won’t let the shots leave the country.¶ Plastic bags are a bigger bottleneck than patents. The US embargo on vaccine supplies to India was precisely that the Biden administration used the DPA to prioritize things like bioreactor bags and filters to US suppliers and that meant that India’s Serum Institute was having trouble getting its production lines ready for Novavax. CureVac, another potential mRNA vaccine, is also finding it difficult to find supplies due to US restrictions (which means supplies are short everywhere). As Derek Lowe said:¶ Abolishing patents will not provide more shaker bags or more Chilean tree bark, nor provide more of the key filtration materials needed for production. These processes have a lot of potential choke points and rate-limiting steps in them, and there is no wand that will wave that complexity away.¶ Technology transfer has been difficult for AstraZeneca–which is one reason they have had production difficulties–and their vaccine uses relatively well understood technology. The mRNA technology is new and has never before been used to produce at scale. Pfizer and Moderna had to build factories and distribution systems from scratch. There are no mRNA factories idling on the sidelines. If there were, Moderna or Pfizer would be happy to license since they are producing in their own factories 24 hours a day, seven days a week (monopolies restrict supply, remember?). Why do you think China hasn’t yet produced an mRNA vaccine? Hint: it isn’t fear about violating IP. Moreover, even Moderna and Pfizer don’t yet fully understand their production technology, they are learning by doing every single day. Moderna has said that they won’t enforce their patents during the pandemic but no one has stepped up to produce because no one else can.¶ The US trade representative’s announcement is virtue signaling to the anti-market left and will do little to nothing to increase supply.
CASE Impact D- covid over soon Pandemic will be over in a year Reuters, 9-23, 21, Moderna chief executive sees pandemic over in a year – newspaper, https://news.trust.org/item/20210923052810-q5d40 ZURICH, Sept 23 (Reuters) - Moderna Inc Chief Executive Stéphane Bancel thinks the coronavirus pandemic could be over in a year as increased vaccine production ensures global supplies, he told the Swiss newspaper Neue Zuercher Zeitung. "If you look at the industry-wide expansion of production capacities over the past six months, enough doses should be available by the middle of next year so that everyone on this earth can be vaccinated. Boosters should also be possible to the extent required," he told the newspaper in an interview. Vaccinations would soon be available even for infants, he said. "Those who do not get vaccinated will immunize themselves naturally, because the Delta variant is so contagious. In this way we will end up in a situation similar to that of the flu. You can either get vaccinated and have a good winter. Or you don't do it and risk getting sick and possibly even ending up in hospital." Asked if that meant a return to normal in the second half of next year, he said: "As of today, in a year, I assume." Bancel said he expected governments to approve booster shots for people already vaccinated because patients at risk who were vaccinated last autumn "undoubtedly" needed a refresher. Its booster shot had half the dose of the original dose, which meant more of them would be available. "The volume of vaccine is the biggest limiting factor. With half the dose, we would have 3 billion doses available worldwide for the coming year instead of just 2 billion," he said. The composition of the booster shot remains the same as the original for this year because Moderna had not had enough time to change it. "We are currently testing Delta-optimized variants in clinical trials. They will form the basis for the booster vaccination for 2022. We are also trying out Delta plus Beta, the next mutation that scientists believe is likely." Moderna can use existing production lines for the new variants as for the original COVID-19 vaccine. The price of vaccination will stay the same, he said. (Reporting by Michael Shields Editing by Robert Birsel)
Their climate excalation impacts were supposed to come within the year, after the first post-COVID grain harvest – it was written in april 2020 – this should’ve already happened 2. The Kitfield Card a. This person evidently has reason to believe both that the LIO is good and that China is always looking to destroy it with nuclear weapons – remember what happened last time we listened to these people and this ideology b. The card is pessimistic securitization– the facts say COVID is bringing countries closer together, but the rhetoric says they’re primed for war c. Xi was being more provocative in response to Trump blaming him for COVID, not COVID himself – Biden isn’t Trump d. The EU are the people that don’t support the vaccine waiver, but France is mad at us for deploying nuclear submarines against China – these alliances and grievances between countries don’t neatly match up across issues, so solving COVID won’t increase international cooperation 3. We rehighlighted their OWN CARD whose tagline is “no alt cause” – that’s a lie – the US is mad at the WTO to the point of forcing its leadership to run aground AND barely participates anyway – the WTO is dying and useless, especially in the context of China and the US, and the EU doesn’t like it either so it’s already illegitimate and we’re still standing Meyer 6-18-21 (David, Senior Writer, https://fortune.com/2021/06/18/wto-covid-vaccines-patents-waiver-south-africa-trips/) The World Trade Organization knows all about crises. Former U.S. President Donald Trump threw a wrench into its core function of resolving trade disputes—a blocker that President Joe Biden has not yet removed—and there is widespread dissatisfaction over the fairness of the global trade rulebook. The 164-country organization, under the fresh leadership of Nigeria's Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has a lot to fix. However, one crisis is more pressing than the others: the battle over COVID-19 vaccines, and whether the protection of their patents and other intellectual property should be temporarily lifted to boost production and end the pandemic sooner rather than later. According to some of those pushing for the waiver—which was originally proposed last year by India and South Africa—the WTO's future rests on what happens next. "The credibility of the WTO will depend on its ability to find a meaningful outcome on this issue that truly ramps-up and diversifies production," says Xolelwa Mlumbi-Peter, South Africa's ambassador to the WTO. "Final nail in the coffin" The Geneva-based WTO isn't an organization with power, as such—it's a framework within which countries make big decisions about trade, generally by consensus. It's supposed to be the forum where disputes get settled, because all its members have signed up to the same rules. And one of its most important rulebooks is the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, or TRIPS, which sprang to life alongside the WTO in 1995. The WTO's founding agreement allows for rules to be waived in exceptional circumstances, and indeed this has happened before: its members agreed in 2003 to waive TRIPS obligations that were blocking the importation of cheap, generic drugs into developing countries that lack manufacturing capacity. (That waiver was effectively made permanent in 2017.) Consensus is the key here. Although the failure to reach consensus on a waiver could be overcome with a 75 supermajority vote by the WTO's membership, this would be an unprecedented and seismic event. In the case of the COVID-19 vaccine IP waiver, it would mean standing up to the European Union, and Germany in particular, as well as countries such as Canada and the U.K.—the U.S. recently flipped from opposing the idea of a waiver to supporting it, as did France. It's a dispute between countries, but the result will be on the WTO as a whole, say waiver advocates. "If, in the face of one of humanity's greatest challenges in a century, the WTO functionally becomes an obstacle as in contrast to part of the solution, I think it could be the final nail in the coffin" for the organization, says Lori Wallach, the founder of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch, a U.S. campaigning group that focuses on the WTO and trade agreements. "If the TRIPS waiver is successful, and people see the WTO as being part of the solution—saving lives and livelihoods—it could create goodwill and momentum to address what are still daunting structural problems." Those problems are legion. Reform needs Top of the list is the WTO's Appellate Body, which hears appeals in members' trade disputes. It's a pivotal part of the international trade system, but Trump—incensed at decisions taken against the U.S. —blocked appointments to its seven-strong panel as judges retired. The body became completely paralyzed at the end of 2019, when two judges' terms ended and the panel no longer had the three-judge quorum it needs to rule on appeals. Anyone who hoped the advent of the Biden administration would change matters was disappointed earlier this year when the U.S. rejected a European proposal to fill the vacancies. "The United States continues to have systemic concerns with the appellate body," it said. "As members know, the United States has raised and explained its systemic concerns for more than 16 years and across multiple U.S. administrations." At her confirmation hearing in February, current U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai reiterated those concerns—she said the appellate body had "overstepped its authority and erred in interpreting WTO agreements in a number of cases, to the detriment of the United States and other WTO members," and accused it of dragging its heels in settling disputes. "Reforms are needed to ensure that the underlying causes of such problems do not resurface," Tai said. "While the U.S. has been engaging with the WTO it hasn't indicated it would move quickly on allowing appointments to the Appellate Body," says Bryan Mercurio, an economic-law professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, who opposes the vaccine waiver. "This is not a good sign. In terms of WTO governance, it's a much more important step than supporting negotiations on an intellectual property waiver." It's not just the U.S. that wants to see reform at the WTO. In a major policy document published in February, the EU said negotiations had failed to modernize the organization's rules, the dispute-resolution system was broken, the monitoring of countries' trade policies was ineffective, and—crucially—"the trade relationship between the U.S. and China, two of the three largest WTO members, is currently largely managed outside WTO disciplines." China is one of the key problems here. It became a WTO member in 2001 but, although this entailed significant liberalization of the Chinese economy, it did not become a full market economy. As the European Commission put it in February: "The level at which China has opened its markets does not correspond to its weight in the global economy, and the state continues to exert a decisive influence on China's economic environment with consequent competitive distortions that cannot be sufficiently addressed by current WTO rules." "China is operating from what it sees as a position of strength, so it will not be bullied into agreeing to changes which it sees as not in its interests," says Mercurio. China is at loggerheads with the U.S., the EU and others over numerous trade-related issues. Its rivals don't like its policy of demanding that Chinese citizens' data is stored on Chinese soil, nor do they approve of how foreign investors often have to partner with Chinese firms to access the country's market, in a way that leads to the transfer of technological knowhow. They also oppose China's industrial subsidies. Mercurio thinks China may agree to reforms on some of these issues, particularly regarding subsidies, but "only if it is offered something in return." All these problems won't go away if the WTO manages to come up with a TRIPS waiver for COVID-19 vaccines and medical supplies, Wallach concedes. "But," she adds, "the will and the good faith to tackle these challenges is increased enormously if the WTO has the experience of being part of the solution, not just an obstacle." Wallach points to a statement released earlier this month by Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) trade ministers, which called for urgent discussions on the waiver. "The WTO must demonstrate that global trade rules can help address the human catastrophe of the COVID-19 pandemic and facilitate the recovery," the statement read in its section about WTO reform. Okonjo-Iweala's role The WTO's new director general, whose route to the top was unblocked in early 2021 with the demise of the Trump administration, is certainly keen to fix the problems that contributed to the early departure of her predecessor, Brazil's Robert Azevedo. "We must act now to get all our ambassadors to the table to negotiate a text" on the issue of an IP waiver for COVID vaccines, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, director general of the World Trade Organization, has said. Dursun Aydemir—Anadolu/Bloomberg/Getty Images Earlier this week, when the U.S. and EU agreed a five-year ceasefire in a long-running dispute over Boeing and Airbus aircraft subsidies, Okonjo-Iweala tweeted: "With political will, we can solve even the most intractable problems." However, Mercurio is skeptical about her stewardship having much of an effect on the WTO's reform process. "Upon taking over she stated it was time for delegations to speak to each other and not simply past each other, but at the recent General Counsel meeting delegations simply read prepared statements in what some have described as the worst meeting ever," he says. "On the other hand, Ngozi is very much someone who will actively seek solutions to problems, and in this way different to her predecessor. If the role of mediator is welcomed, she could have an impact not in starting discussions but in getting deals over the finish line." A spokesperson for the WTO Secretariat declined to offer comment on Mlumbi-Peter and Wallach's suggestions that the organization's credibility rests on the vaccine patent waiver issue, but pointed to a May speech in which Okonjo-Iweala said the WTO could help tackle vaccine supply chain monitoring and transparency, helping manufacturers scale up production, and creating a more geographically diversified manufacturing base. In her speech, the WTO chief also said members "must address issues related to technology transfer, knowhow and intellectual property," including the waiver proposal. "We must act now to get all our ambassadors to the table to negotiate a text," she said.
Turns solvency because too many people will be afraid of the vaccine to achieve herd immunity. Crosby et al. 21Daniel Crosby, Evan Diamond, Isabel Fernandez De La Cuesta, Jamieson Greer, Jeffrey Telep, Brian White; Crosby specializes in international trade, investment and matters related to public international law. Diamond is a partner on our Intellectual Property, Patent, Trademark and Copyright Litigation team.; 3-5-2021; "Group of Nearly 60 WTO Members Seek Unprecedented Waiver from WTO Intellectual Property Protection for COVID-related Medical Products"; https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/group-of-nearly-60-wto-members-seek-2523821/, JD Supra, accessed 7-21-2021; JPark Waiver risks uncontrolled use of patented technologies, without improving vaccine access. Pharmaceutical companies can provide, and have provided, licenses to distribute or scale-up production of COVID-19 vaccines and therapies at reduced cost. Such license agreements allow for expanded access in low- and middle-income countries, while also setting reasonable parameters so that patents and other IP rights are used to address the specific medical needs of the COVID-19 pandemic at hand, and not for other purposes. License agreements also allow for orderly technology transfer, including of unpatented “trade secret” information and other critical “know-how,” that may be essential to efficiently producing and scaling-up safe and effective versions of technologically complex vaccines and biologic drug products. Under the present TRIPS waiver proposal, however, member countries could try to exploit an extraordinarily broad scope of IP and copy patented technologies so long as they are “in relation to prevention, containment or treatment of COVID-19.” For example, under an expansive reading of the proposed waiver language, a member country could try to produce patented pharmaceutical compounds that have other indicated uses predating COVID-19, if such compounds had later been studied or experimentally used for potential symptomatic relief or antiviral activity in COVID-19 patients. The same risks may be faced by manufacturers of patented materials or devices that have multiple uses predating COVID-19, but also may be used as “personal protective equipment” or components thereof, or in other measures arguably relating to COVID-19 “prevention” or “containment.” At the same time, it is unclear how the proposed TRIPS waiver could provide the technology transfer and know-how critical for making the complex molecules and formulations constituting the various COVID-19 vaccines. Vaccine manufacture undertaken by an unauthorized party without the proper processes and controls could result in a different product that is potentially ineffective or results in unwanted health consequences. And even if an unauthorized manufacturer could overcome those substantial hurdles to reverse-engineer and scale up a safe and effective vaccine copy, it would likely take substantial time and a series of failures to do so. Notably, several of the original COVID-19 vaccine developers have recently faced low product yield and other manufacturing challenges during pre-commercial scale-up efforts and the initial months of commercial production. ongoing quality assurance support.