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2025 Vietnamese J. Legal Sciences 1 (2025)

handle is hein.journals/vemsjl2025 and id is 1 raw text is: ' sciendo Vietnamese Journal ofLegal Sciences, Vol. 13, No. 01, 2025, pp. 01-13 DOI: 10.2478/vjls-2025-0001 1 PUBLIC HEALTH POLICIES AND PHARMACEUTICAL SOVEREIGNTY THROUGH THE PRISM OF INVESTMENT AGREEMENTS IN THE ASIA-PACIFIC REGION SEBASTIEN MANCIAUX University of Burgundy; Member of the Centre de Recherche sur le Droit des Investissements et des Marches Internationaux (CREDIMI), France Email: Sebastien.Manciaux@u-bourgogne.fr Abstract In many countries, the Covid-19 crisis was accompanied by shortages of medical equipment (masks, gowns, respirators,...) and medicines, 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 lastfew 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 obserwed 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 considerfirstly whether investment treaties authorize or regulate public health policies that may be adopted or modied 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. Keywords: industry relocation, Covid-19 crisis, pharmaceutical sovereignty, new policies, state's aid, investment treaties, investments international mobility, states international obligations Received: 29 November 2024 Revised: 10 January 2025 Accepted: 18 March 2025 In several countries, the early stages of the Covid-19 crisis saw significant shortages ofmedical supplies including masks, gowns, respirators, and medications before the focus shifted to challenges surrounding access to newly developed vaccines. Pharmaceutical sovereignty became a growing concern, even if the issue is not the same everywhere. In countries without a pharmaceutical industry and dependent on imported health products, the Covid-19 pandemic came on top of previous pandemics (also accompanied by shortages of medicines), notably the AIDS pandemic at the end of the 20th century in many southern African countries. In many developed countries where a pharmaceutical industry had been built up over the last few centuries and was thought to be solid, the Covid-19 pandemic and the resulting

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