Justice in Global Distribution of mRNA Vaccine Technology

Abstract

The mRNA vaccine platform reached clinical use with unprecedented speed during COVID-19, but its benefits reached the world unevenly, and this review asks what justice requires in the distribution of the technology itself rather than only its finished doses.
We examine the pooled-procurement mechanism COVAX and the evidence that donor-dependent charity models were structurally outcompeted by bilateral advance purchase agreements between wealthy governments and manufacturers. We then trace the intellectual-property debate over the TRIPS waiver and compulsory licensing, where scholarship is divided over whether patent law or the tacit manufacturing know-how behind mRNA production was ever the binding constraint on access. A more recent literature turns to manufacturing capacity and technology-transfer hubs as the deeper structural issue, arguing that durable regional production capability, not faster donation, is the metric that should define a just distribution. We conclude that public-goods arguments grounded in donor self-interest are too fragile to support a lasting distributive framework, and that the arrangements built during this pandemic for sharing manufacturing capability will set the precedent for whichever platform technology follows mRNA.