Calling on the International Criminal Court to serve justice for COVID Genocide
As you read this today, 5 July 2021, the global death toll from Covid-19 is crossing 4 million. By the time this pandemic is finally brought under control, projections are that 6-8 million will have died. Of these, a significant number have died and will die because of the hoarding of vaccines, vaccine raw materials, and vaccine technology, by many developed countries, knowing full well that this would lead to the deaths of millions in developing nations.
This is the genocide we warned the world about in this very column on 3 January 2021, in an article titled “Rich vs. poor amidst Covid: The economic genocide of 2021”, and again on 26 April 2021, in a follow-up article titled “Our prediction has sadly come true: Vaccine genocide, right before our eyes!”. We coined the term “Covid Genocide” because that’s what it is – genocide by the global rich on the global poor.
When will the world look back and demand justice for these millions of preventable deaths? Well, we are calling for it now.
A plague on the developing world
Four of the top five countries worst hit by Covid are in the developing world – Brazil, India, Mexico, and Peru – which account for 1.4 million deaths, so far. Vaccination rates in all these nations are abysmal. The situation in Africa is so bad that the head of the World Health Organisation has spoken out repeatedly that vaccine hoarding by rich nations is a key cause of the Covid crisis in Africa.
Meanwhile, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa last week slammed rich nations for their vaccine hoarding policies and announced that his country would set up its own vaccine production plants to produce vaccines for the entire African continent, as they could not rely on the rich nations. South Africa has only been able to vaccinate 2% of its 59 million population.
The “vaccine nationalism” is frequently referred to as a situation where countries are pressured to first access the supply of vaccines and maybe host important components in production. The vaccination of Covid-19 can avoid the most in need of global competition or vaccine nationalism. Failure to allocate any vaccination could lead to a lower-risk vaccine in some nations resulting in needless deaths for vulnerable people.
Battle between rich and poor nations
While the Covid-19 pandemic was hazardous to the human race and every nation, statistics clearly show a disturbing inequality between vaccinations in advanced countries and developing economies. By and large, rich countries took care of themselves and then hoarded vaccines and raw materials, knowing full well that this would result in the deaths of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, in the poor nations. The rest of the globe struggled for supplies with these hoardings.
In addition, the low-income countries will take several years more to inoculate much of their populations. This reflects the unfortunate cycle of worldwide pandemics; while poor countries have to wait for years or decades to overcome them, rich nations first benefit from the latest medical coverage. Projections vary, but it is estimated that approximately 85 nations will have broad access to vaccines by 2023, whereas mass vaccination across the globe is likely to occur only by 2024.
For countries in Southeast Asia this is particularly true. Singapore is expected to attain widespread immunisation by the end of this year as a high-income economy with a tiny population. In the meantime, vaccination is predicted to take place in Vietnam, Brunei, Thailand, and Malaysia in 2022, and Indonesia and the Philippines in 2023. However, poorer countries like Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar may not be able to get widespread vaccination in perhaps the next five years. To address this problem, Covax, the largest and most diverse portfolio of Covid-19 injections, was a global attempt to facilitate an equitable distribution of vaccines. More than 190 wealthy and poor countries have signed up to access 20% of their people with immunisations.
The stockpiling of vaccines reflects the apparent nationalism of the vaccination among rich countries, as their country's leaders prioritise the world. It is nonetheless unacceptable to keep turning a blind eye on the rest of the globe. Indeed, not only does vaccine nationalism prolong the worldwide pandemic, but also delays the economic recovery in the poor nations. Simply put, many of the rich nations have already begun their economic recoveries, while the poorest of nations may not be able to recover for several years more due to their inability to obtain sufficient numbers of vaccine doses.
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Fig 1: Covid hotspots around the world on 2 July 2021, showing the inequality of vaccination. Source: New York times[/caption]
Economic genocide
The collapse of poorer economies will also lead to further deaths due to a variety of economic reasons in poor countries. Economic genocide means thousands of our children go to bed starving and weak and wake up starving and collapsing. A lack of nutrition implies being weak. They will be less able to battle against disease, and certainly, hundreds of children will die before their time.
Murdering the poor
Every day in our countries, the act of genocide takes place. This genocide is more subtle: there are no guns fired; there is no blood.
When thousands of our people are struggling in poverty and misery, it makes no economic sense to grant the super-rich in affluent nations billions of dollars in exemptions for taxation and customs duties. Many poor families fail to sufficiently feed their children. The world needs to support poor households through job creation, lower taxes, and cheaper public services costs. As the super-rich are granted trillions in sweeping taxes and customs duties exemptions, treasuries in developing countries have little ability to perform as they are starved of revenue.
A question of justice
The fact that genocide is taking place, has taken place, and will continue to take place during this pandemic through the callous attitudes of many rich nations, has been proven beyond doubt. The question now is whether there will ever be justice for the victims, and what mechanisms can be used to achieve this. Or will this simply be swept under the carpet?
International Law of Economic Genocide
Genocide status is well-developed in international law and is a customary component of international law and the Treaty. The International Criminal Court has examined and made several convictions in the context of genocide, for example the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Court of Rwanda.
In 1994, tensions between the Hutu majority and the Tutsi minority increased during the Rwandan genocide. With machetes, Hutus turned to Tutsis. According to the United Nations, up to 1 million people have been killed in just 100 days. Those who organised these massacres were later tried by the International Criminal Court. But genocide is not confined to violent acts, and Covid Genocide should also be considered genocide.
Ground reality of vaccination
Statistics clearly show that countries that are hoarding vaccines, vaccine technology, and raw materials have themselves achieved very high levels of vaccination. The US, for example, currently has over 47% of its population fully vaccinated. Meanwhile, large but less developed countries such as Vietnam have only been able to achieve 0.2% vaccination.
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Fig. 2: Current levels of vaccination. Source: Southeast Asia Covid-19 Tracker, 2 July 2021[/caption]
In Asia, coronavirus vaccinations have progressed extremely slowly. Micro-nations and island republics such as the Seychelles, the Maldives, or Singapore are predictably the greatest achievement to date. The latter doses were around 86 per 100 people as of 21 June, but the latest reached about 92 and 140 doses in the Maldives and the Seychelles. Mongolia has reached 110 doses per 100 persons, a country with less than 3.5 million inhabitants. China has played an essential role in giving a head start to the Seychelles vaccination programme and is also delivering local vaccinations for Indonesia and Cambodia. Singapore has relied on US and European vaccines, as did South Korea and Japan. India supported neighbors and allies with their AstraZeneca vaccine, known as Covishield, made domestically, and also offers a locally-developed vaccine. Regardless of where you receive your immunisations, late starters in Asia have occurred. Vietnam, Taiwan, and Pakistan are among them. Pakistan was affected much worse, but did not receive the right quantity of vaccinations like the other two countries, probably due to the fact that it is not allied with China or India.
Covid deaths in Asia – 13 June 2021
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Fig. 3: Covid deaths in Asia. Source: Statista, 2021[/caption]
The situation in Africa is indeed dreadful. The World Health Organisation (WHO) regional office recently announced that 90% of the African countries would miss the aim of vaccinating 10% of their populations by June 2021.
The continent uses multiple vaccines, which have been obtained in various ways. Both African countries buy and receive new doses from other countries. They are donations from all around the world, including China, the UAE, India, and Russia. In addition, Oxford/AstraZeneca and Pfizer/BioNTech dosages have previously been delivered to select African countries via the UN-led COVAX Initiative. The coverage of African vaccines is the lowest at around eight doses, compared with the worldwide 150 doses per 1,000 people.
Socio-economic impact
The expansion of Covid-19 had a substantial impact on socio-economic progress in Africa, with the continent having significantly contracted its gross domestic product (GDP) in 2020. In particular, the largest fall occurred in South Africa, at -7%, and in Central Africa at -2.7%. The pandemic has affected most of Africa’s main economic sectors. The fall in world oil prices led to a petroleum and gas crisis. Nigeria, the main oil-exporting country of the continent, has suffered a significant reduction in the trade-in crude oil in 2020, for example. In addition, the declining number of international tourism arrivals. Tourism in Africa has led to the loss of more than 12 million jobs. Entities have been significantly affected by Covid-19 on the world's poorest continent and by 2020, there have been anticipating an increase of roughly 30 million in the number of people living in severe poverty.
The number of deaths in Brazil have risen to over 520,000 (Current status), representing the “biggest genocide” in the history of Latin America, Brazil’s former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva remarked.
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Fig. 4. Covid-19 Latin American/Caribbean (LAC) countries’ deaths and mortality rates. Source: Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Coronavirus Resource Center, June 2021[/caption]
There has been considerable vaccination roll-out in the region and concern is that widespread availability to vaccines may be delayed until 2022 or early 2023 in certain countries. According to Johns Hopkins University, Chile was leading in the region with 50% of its completely vaccinated population, followed by Uruguay with roughly 42% as of 23 June 2021. Several Covid-19 countries, notably Brazil (11.7%), Mexico (13.4%), Peru (7.8%), Colombia (9.9%), and Argentina, have completely vaccinated a smaller percentage of their people (8.3%). Guatemala and Honduras (both less than 1% fully vaccinated), include countries with poor levels of vaccination.
Socio-economic impact
The International Monetary Fund anticipated that the region would suffer 7% economic contractions by 2020 in the April 2021 version of its World Economic Outlook. In countries which rely largely on global commerce and investment, economic recovery may be a protracted process. Caribbean countries that rely on tourism are facing serious economic recessions, and some are forecast to fall by more than 15% in 2020. Several pandemic-hit South American nations are anticipated to record economic declines of more than 10%. Although the majority of nations in the region are anticipated to start economic recovery in 2021, the IMF regional growth prediction lags 4.6% below the forecast for world economic growth of 6%. The worst hit are the poor, developing nations, for which Covid is far more devastating due to the callousness of the richer nations.
| Copyright Niresh Eliatamby and Nicholas Ruwan Dias
Dr. Nicholas Ruwan Dias, BSc, MSc, PhD, and Niresh Eliatamby, LL.B., LL.M., MBA, are Managing Partners of Cogitaro.com, a consultancy that finds practical solutions for challenges facing society, the environment and all types of industries.
Dr. Dias is a digital architect and educationist based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. ruwan@cogitaro.com
Eliatamby is a lecturer in Law, an Author and Entrepreneur based in Colombo, Sri Lanka. niresh@cogitaro.com |
