TRIPs, Patents and Access to Life-Saving Drugs in the Developing World

Abstract

This article critically analyzes the agreement implementing Paragraph 6 of the Doha Declaration. The author briefly details the trend of linking intellectual property rights to international trade before summarizing the pertinent provisions of the TRIPs Agreement. The author then introduces the controversy surrounding access to medicines by first detailing the global events that brought the issue to the fore and then by evaluating the accomplishments and unanswered questions of the Doha Declaration. The author also discusses the agreement implementing the Paragraph 6 Mandate, critically analyzes its provisions, and addresses several lingering questions and problems unaddressed by this agreement. The author argues that, as a majority of the drugs used to combat public health epidemics such as HIV/AIDS and malaria are off-patent or not patented in many developing countries and LDCs, the agreement will do very little to assist the nations in preventing and treating public health crises and epidemics. The author further argues that issues of extreme poverty, lack of funding for healthcare, and little or no resources available for the storage, transport, and distribution of drugs must be considered and addressed before there can be any hope of alleviating the suffering in the developing world.

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