Effects of TRIPS Plus Provisions in International Trade Agreements upon Access to Medicines in Developing Countries

Though the UN has envisaged that accessibility to essential medicines is a basic human right, a large number of people in developing countries are denied access to essential medicines. MNCs having the branded medicines have a tendency to choke the supply chain of cheaper generic medicines using the weapon of intellectual property rights. The TRIPS Agreement has set the minimum standard of protection of Intellectual Property but it has provisions of flexibilities such as compulsory licenses, parallel imports limitations to patent rights, etc., which can be used by member states to provide access to these essential medicines to their people. However, countries like US are using provisions which are over and above the flexibilities incorporated in TRIPS to deny access to essential medicines to people in developing countries. The accessibility of essential medicines to the population in developing countries as affected by these FTAs, ACTA, TPP and TTIP agreements have been examined in this paper and a case has been made out for the unity of the developing and least developed countries to deter US from choking the supply lines of the essential medicines to poor and needy.