Description
This paper advances a conceptualization of delayed and uneven access to pharmaceutical products worldwide, proposing that the global access gap can be considered Necropolitics at large: a generalized Necropolitics predicated on negligence and acquiescence to the fatal implications of global inequalities. I begin by showing that the access gap has defined pharmaceutical markets since the mid-1990s. Measures to correct this problem such as the 2001 Doha declaration remain weak and underutilized. I then discuss how the global political economy of distribution of pharmaceutical products, including pricing, is influenced by the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement under the World Trade Organisation. I argue that the implications of this gap are ignored in Western capitals because colonial legacies and continuities, including nascent racism, shape pandemic politics. Privileged access to medication and vaccines for select Western countries is codified as a matter of course, while access for the rest of the world is conditional on philanthropy. Meanwhile, bolstered by global governance, pandemics always present opportunities for pharmaceutical manufacturers. This article contributes a framework to reveal the order of power in global economic governance that takes seriously the death caused by the global access gap.
