Access to Medicines in the Mature TRIPS Regime: A Sceptical View

Abstract

This paper presents a way to think about a legal solution to an intractable problem, reconciling a now worldwide patent rights regime with access to essential medicines. In doing so, it insists that the potentialities of the current TRIPS flexibilities be assessed realistically. The focus is on the Indian legal experience of the flexibilities but, because India is the source of most generic drugs for poorer people around the world, it is the Indian experience in its interaction with the international agreement and in comparison with the laws in other countries, and indeed with the political economy of the production and distribution of medicines. This assessment raises questions about perspectives that expect the flexibilities to work at the national level. It considers what can be done now at the international level where the legal power of the patent begins.