The Second Oxford Statement on International Law Protections of the Healthcare Sector During Covid-19: Safeguarding Vaccine Research

Dapo Akade, Professor of Professor of Public International Law, Co-Director, Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law & Armed Conflict (ELAC), and Talita de Souza Dias, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Law with ELAC and Tsvetlana van Benthem, DPhil student, have co-authored The Second Oxford Statement on International Law Protections of the Healthcare Sector During Covid-19: Safeguarding Vaccine Research.

Co-authors of the statement are: Antonio Coco (University of Essex), Duncan B. Hollis (Temple Law School), Harold Hongju Koh (Yale Law School) and James C. O’Brien (Albright Stonebridge Group).

As the pandemic continues to unfold, vaccine research has emerged as a new, critical vulnerability. COVID-19 vaccine, research, manufacture, and distribution are both essential medical services and part of States’ critical infrastructure that must be protected by international law.  The statement calls on states to consider rules and principles of international law that protect the research, manufacture and distribution of COVID-19 vaccine candidates against harmful cyber operation when developing national positions as well as in the relevant multilateral processes and deliberations.

There are 70 signatories to the statement, among them lawyers, academics and public servants.