TRIPS Agreement and Access to Essential Medicines

Abstract

“The World Trade Organization (WTO) is the international organization dealing with the rules of trade between nations.”1 The WTO was born in the Uruguay Round, trade discussions that lasted from September 1986 to April 1994, which transformed the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade into the World Trade Organization. One of the most significant achievements of the Uruguay Round was the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual property Rights (TRIpS) Agreement. This agreement, signed in Marrakech, Morocco, on the 15th of April 1994, requires all WTO Members to provide certain minimum standards of protection for all kinds of intellectual property rights, including patents, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets and geographical indications. The agreement also requires countries to provide for effective IPR enforcement. 2 Since then, the TRIPS Agreement has come into force and become known as the most extensive multilateral agreement on intellectual property up to now, which has had a big influence on the pharmaceutical sector and access to medicines. During the Uruguay Round, the US was very anxious to have an IPR agreement on the agenda, especially on patents, in order to strengthen the prospects of large multinational pharmaceutical companies. 3 Since the US was successful in influencing aspects of the TRIPS agreement, it was able to universalize a system similar to the one in force in the United States. The TRIPS Agreement is the first broadly-accepted multilateral intellectual property agreement that is enforceable between governments, allowing them to resolve disputes through the WTO dispute settlement mechanism.