TY - JOUR
T1 - Towards a new model of global health justice
T2 - the case of COVID-19 vaccines
AU - Jecker, Nancy S.
AU - Atuire, Caesar A.
AU - Bull, Susan J.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 BMJ Publishing Group. All rights reserved.
PY - 2023/5
Y1 - 2023/5
N2 - This paper questions an exclusively state-centred framing of global health justice and proposes a multilateral alternative. Using the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines to illustrate, we bring to light a broad range of global actors up and down the chain of vaccine development who contribute to global vaccine inequities. Section 1 (Background) presents an overview of moments in which diverse global actors, each with their own priorities and aims, shaped subsequent vaccine distribution. Section 2 (Collective action failures) characterises collective action failures at each phase of vaccine development that contributed to global vaccine disparities. It identifies as critical the task of establishing upstream strategies to coordinate collective action at multiple stages across a range of actors. Section 3 (A Multilateral model of global health governance) takes up this task, identifying a convergence of interests among a range of stakeholders and proposing ways to realise them. Appealing to a responsibility to protect (R2P), a doctrine developed in response to human rights atrocities during the 1990s, we show how to operationalise R2P through a principle of subsidiarity and present ethical arguments in support of this approach.
AB - This paper questions an exclusively state-centred framing of global health justice and proposes a multilateral alternative. Using the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines to illustrate, we bring to light a broad range of global actors up and down the chain of vaccine development who contribute to global vaccine inequities. Section 1 (Background) presents an overview of moments in which diverse global actors, each with their own priorities and aims, shaped subsequent vaccine distribution. Section 2 (Collective action failures) characterises collective action failures at each phase of vaccine development that contributed to global vaccine disparities. It identifies as critical the task of establishing upstream strategies to coordinate collective action at multiple stages across a range of actors. Section 3 (A Multilateral model of global health governance) takes up this task, identifying a convergence of interests among a range of stakeholders and proposing ways to realise them. Appealing to a responsibility to protect (R2P), a doctrine developed in response to human rights atrocities during the 1990s, we show how to operationalise R2P through a principle of subsidiarity and present ethical arguments in support of this approach.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85130784255&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1136/medethics-2022-108165
DO - 10.1136/medethics-2022-108165
M3 - Article
C2 - 35487676
AN - SCOPUS:85130784255
SN - 0306-6800
VL - 49
SP - 367
EP - 374
JO - Journal of Medical Ethics
JF - Journal of Medical Ethics
IS - 5
ER -