Access to Medicines and the International Patent Rights Regime

Abstract

The focus of this chapter is the World Trade Organization’s (WTO’s) Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) as a central component in trade-related governance affecting the pharmaceutical industry. TRIPS is therefore illustrative of how health issues and outcomes are not necessarily determined by actors and institutions primarily associated with health. The chapter begins by discussing how intellectual patent rights and access to medicines came to be understood as a global health issue with the coming into force of TRIPS in 1995. Second, the chapter traces the manner in which TRIPS and its adverse health impacts were subsequently challenged by counter-framings based on human rights. Finally, we link TRIPS to the emergence of institutions and actors involved in addressing the access to medicines issue.