This article is a critical legal analysis of the proposed TRIPS waiver under World Trade Organization (WTO) law. It reviews the existing TRIPS flexibilities and the “August 2003 TRIPS waiver”, highlighting the obstacles to achieving the goals of these legal instruments. It demonstrates that numerous critical TRIPS flexibilities, notably TRIPS Article 31bis, are ineffective, prompting some countries to submit a new waiver proposal to the WTO. It highlights several WTO rules that are also quite ambiguous. This paper argues that a WTO clarification might be an alternative to the new TRIPS waiver proposal if it is ultimately rejected due to a lack of consensus among WTO members. Finally, this article emphasises the importance of adopting a balanced approach that may simplify complicated TRIPS rules, decrease the risk of trade-based retaliation and improve collaboration in knowledge transfer and scaling up the manufacture of and access to lifesaving vaccines, pharmaceuticals and healthcare equipment.

本文是对世界贸易组织 (WTO) 法律下拟议的 TRIPS 豁免的批判性法律分析。它审查了现有的 TRIPS 灵活性和“2003 年 8 月 TRIPS 豁免”，强调了实现这些法律文书目标的障碍。它表明许多关键的 TRIPS 灵活性，特别是 TRIPS 第 31 条之二，无效，促使一些国家向世贸组织提交新的豁免提案。它突出了一些也相当模棱两可的世贸组织规则。本文认为，如果由于 WTO 成员之间缺乏共识而最终被否决，则 WTO 澄清可能是新的 TRIPS 豁免提案的替代方案。最后，本文强调了采用平衡方法的重要性，这种方法可以简化复杂的 TRIPS 规则，降低基于贸易的报复风险，改善知识转移方面的合作，并扩大生产和获得救生疫苗、药品和医疗保健设备的规模。