Public Health Policies and Pharmaceutical Sovereignty Through The Prism of Investment Agreements in the Asia-Pacific Region

In many countrieş the Covid-19 crisis was accompanied by shortages of medical equipment (masks, gowns, respirators, …) and medicineş before the issue of access to newly developed vaccines came to the fore. Pharmaceutical sovereignty became a growing concern. In many developed countries where a pharmaceutical industry had been built up over the last few centuries, the Covid-19 pandemic and the resulting shortage of medical equipment and medicines led to the discovery that this industry had relocated and was now only keeping part of its production lines in these countries. To remedy the shortages observed during the Covid-19 pandemic, the main response, particularly in Europe and France, is to propose a proactive policy based on relocating pharmaceutical production in order to restore pharmaceutical sovereignty. This new policy raises the question of its legal compatibility with the international commitments made by most of the world’s states in investment agreements. The globalization of the economy and the relocation of industries, not just pharmaceuticals, have been supported by a network of international investment treaties. The goal of the present study is to consider firstly whether investment treaties authorize or regulate public health policies that may be adopted or modified by the States parties to these treaties, and in a second time whether measures designed to encourage the relocation of pharmaceutical production are compatible with the treaty obligations entered into by States in these investment protection treaties.