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Access to Medicines and Human Rights Issues

The document discusses the tension between intellectual property rights and access to affordable medicines, which is an important human right. It explains that international agreements like TRIPS and some free trade agreements can negatively impact access to medicines by allowing patent owners to keep drug prices artificially high. While the Doha Declaration created some flexibilities for countries, not all have incorporated them into law and some trade agreements limit their ability to use flexibilities. Overall, there remains an ongoing conflict between protecting intellectual property and ensuring all people can access necessary treatments.

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Rakesh TR
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11 views2 pages

Access to Medicines and Human Rights Issues

The document discusses the tension between intellectual property rights and access to affordable medicines, which is an important human right. It explains that international agreements like TRIPS and some free trade agreements can negatively impact access to medicines by allowing patent owners to keep drug prices artificially high. While the Doha Declaration created some flexibilities for countries, not all have incorporated them into law and some trade agreements limit their ability to use flexibilities. Overall, there remains an ongoing conflict between protecting intellectual property and ensuring all people can access necessary treatments.

Uploaded by

Rakesh TR
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

Access to Medicine and Human Rights

Abstract

Access to affordable medicines is a critical aspect of human rights which states are obliged to even in the field of trade agreement. Article 12 ICESCR, as interpreted by CESCR General Comment No. 14 (2000), childs right to [Link] 24 CRC and CRC General Comment No. 3 on HIV/AIDS, (2003), the right to life, particularly in the context of endemic diseases like HIV/[Link] 6 ICCPR, as interpreted by HRC General Comment No. 6 (1982.). Based on the above conventions it is the duty of the state to ensure access to affordable medicines to all without discrimination which is an intrinsic part of the right to the highest attainable standard of health.

India after becoming the member to ( Trade related aspects of Intellectual property rights) TRIPS Agreement has to comply with the minimum standards prescribed in the Agreement. The provision raises several questions before developing countries and least developed countries concerning public health in the pharmaceutical sector. A number of TRIPS provisions affect access to affordable medicines, a crucial part of the right to health and the right to life. Itt mandates for to grant patent owners at least twenty years of exclusive commercial rights, allowing them to have monopoly control over making, using or selling their inventions. The effect is that patent owners can keep prices of patented drugs artificially high, putting them out of reach of many, particularly the most poor and vulnerable people. Thus TRIPS has an impact on access to affordable medicines, particularly in the context of epidemics such as HIV/AIDS.

However, in order to facilitate the options available in the Doha Declaration, countries will have to incorporate the necessary changes in their national laws. Harmonization of intellectual property rights among WTO members in the recent years has seen debates on access to medicines. Though flexibilities exist in the WTO Agreement to safeguard public health priorities, such as, parallel imports, compulsory licensing, yet the capacity to utilize these

flexibilities depends on various factors including countrys developmental status and capacity of the industry in these countries. Because of the opening up of trade and trade concessions, those binding the intellectual property rights of the goods concerning USA are stricter and broader and thereby become more powerful than the WTO Agreement governing the countries. Though the Doha Declaration facilitates access to medicines, some of the free trade agreements are drafted in such a way that the least developed countries can not exercise the flexibilities. When millions of people in developing countries are affected by the disease, yet do not have access to drugs that are needed as treatment due to the high cost of the patented drugs, which shows that there is still tension between intellectual property rights and public health policies of US or the EU.

The paper examines the conflicts created by the TRIPS-plus bilateral agreements and their potential negative impact on access to medicine for developing countries, particularly, data exclusivity with potential to extend monopoly status of the newly introduced drugs and delay the entry of generic drugs, which would obviously keep the prices beyond the reach of developing countries thereby making access to drugs difficult, also examines the role of the state in regulating the drugs and essential medicines in promoting access in the context of these bilateral agreements..

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