KEI Briefing Note 2026:6
James Love
Knowledge Ecology International (KEI)
Sept 8, 2026
KEI has prepared a briefing note for negotiators at IGWG 8, beginning September 14, 2026.
Summary
Point 1: Relying on a link between access to PABS materials and data and equity provisions does not create reliable leverage (due to non-exclusive sharing, alternate pathogen sources).
Point 2: Linking equity to access to information actively impedes scientific collaborative work important for rapid development of useful countermeasures.
Point 3: Use-based tracking may be technically impractical. Provenance is a substantially less reliable enforcement mechanism than market authorization and sale.
Point 4: A more direct approach is available, that provides more reliable leverage for access obligations and that does not create unwanted restrictions on scientific inquiry and collaborations. Benefit sharing can be enforced at the point where governments have reliable leverage over manufacturers, the authorization and sale of relevant pandemic products, rather than depend exclusively on proving that a manufacturer obtained or used a particular PABS material or sequence.