The TRIPS Agreement:

Balancing Incentive for Innovation with Access to Medicines.

The Duke International Law Society brought two experts on the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS) to Duke Law on April 3 to discuss the issues of innovation and access to medicine for developing countries.

Sisule Frederick Musungu, an advocate of the High Court of Kenya as well as project director for the South Centre's Programme on International Trade and Development.

In a panel discussion entitled, "Managing the Hydra: Resolving Roadblocks to Ensuring Access to Essential Medicines," Frederick Abbot, Edward B. Eminent Scholar of International Law at Florida State University Law, gave an overview of the history of the International trade system as a part of the United Nations through the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). He then transitioned into the 1987 to 1994 period of the multi-country Uruguay Round negotiations for the establishment of the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the transitional period for implementation of TRIPS given to developing countries. Abbott then provided an overview of several key trade disputes over access to medicines and developing countries, such as the Brazil v. U.S. case over compulsory licensing and local working of patents. Abbot emphasized the political and economic roadblocks that exist for many countries attempting to increase access to medicines for their populations. He ended with a brief outline of the November 2001 Doha Declaration, which supports a broad interpretation to the TRIPS Agreement and allows developing countries to override patents when in the interest of public health.

Providing more of the developing country perspective, Sisule Frederick Musungu, an intellectual property lawyer from Kenya, discussed issues surrounding the proper venue for debating how to address the problem. His premise was that trade was the wrong arena, that access to medicines is actually a public health problem – one in which the World Health Organization should have a more central role than it was given during the years of discussion. Musungu discussed how he believes events should unfold after Doha, stating that the problems ought to be dealt with more on a local level rather than an international level in Geneva or in the United States Trade Office, which are both far removed from where the problems exist. He stated that the key issues are how governments can effectively address the situation of nearly a third of their populations dying because of financial inaccessibility to life-saving drugs and how to solve this problem on a local as well as an international level.

Frederick Abbot, Edward B. Eminent Scholar of International Law at Florida State University College of Law.

In addition to his work at Florida State University, Abbott is a consultant to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development Project on TRIPS and Development to the World Health Organization. Musungu is an advocate of the High Court of Kenya as well as project director for the South Centre's Programme on International Trade and Development.

This discussion was the last in the International Law Society's Speaker Series on Law and International Development. The International Law Society, in conjunction with the Intellectual Property Society, and through the support of the John Hope Franklin Center, and the International Development Policy program at the Sanford Institute, hosted the event.