Of Medicines and Markets: Intellectual Property and Human Rights in the Free Trade Era

摘要

Lawyers and economists have recently paid a great deal of attention to the globalization of intellectual property rights. The 1994 Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, (the TRIPS agreement), established minimum standards for intellectual property protection in all member states of the World Trade Organization. Nations outside the OECD accepted the agreement on the understanding that they would in turn receive improved access to OECD markets, especially in agriculture and textiles. They also recognized that failure of the agreement would expose dissenting nations to serious bilateral trade sanctions from the United States. In fact, the promised agricultural trade benefits have not been delivered. The post-TRIPS Doha meeting occurred at a time when an abortive lawsuit to prevent use of generics to fight AIDS in Africa was making international headlines, and was further complicated by the anthrax emergency in the United States, whose administration pressured the maker of a key drug to make it accessible on reasonable terms around the time when it was arguing against compulsory licensing at Doha. For the pharmaceutical industry, the Doha Declaration of 2001 ended less favorably than anticipated. It postponed compliance dates for low-income countries and allowed for some compulsory licensing and national production and use of generics in emergency circumstances.