Brown Stephen, Rosier Morgane
School of Political Studies, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada.
University of Cambridge Centre for Gender Studies, Department of Politics and International Studies, Cambridge, UK.
Br J Polit Int Relat. 2023 Aug;25(3):535-554. doi: 10.1177/13691481231178248. Epub 2023 Jun 13.
The equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines is one of the most important tests of global cooperation that the world has faced in recent decades. Collectively, global leaders failed that crucible abysmally, creating a 'vaccine apartheid' that divided the world according to income into countries with widespread access and those without. Why, given that leaders were fully aware of the risks and injustice of vaccine inequity, did governments of wealthy countries hoard doses, impede the expansion of vaccine manufacturing and otherwise prevent equitable access to vaccines? We argue that their decisions to act selfishly are best explained by governments' accountability to domestic constituencies, their lack of leadership and commitment to multilateralism and their adoption of short-term perspectives, as well as their unwillingness to curb the influence of profit-oriented global pharmaceutical companies and, to a certain extent, of an additional private actor, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
新冠疫苗的公平分配是近几十年来世界所面临的全球合作的最重要考验之一。总体而言，全球领导人在这场严峻考验中表现得极为糟糕，制造了一种“疫苗种族隔离”，根据收入将世界分为疫苗广泛可得的国家和无法获得疫苗的国家。鉴于各国领导人充分意识到疫苗不公平的风险和不公正性，为什么富裕国家的政府要囤积剂量、阻碍疫苗生产的扩大，并以其他方式阻止公平获取疫苗呢？我们认为，他们自私行事的决定，最好的解释是政府对国内选民负责、缺乏领导力和对多边主义的承诺、采取短期视角，以及不愿遏制以盈利为导向的全球制药公司以及在一定程度上另一个私人行为体比尔及梅琳达·盖茨基金会的影响力。
