20th April 2005
HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION CALLS ON STATES TO USE TRIPS FLEXIBILITIES
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The UN Commission on Human Rights has called on its 53 members to consider taking full advantage of the flexibilities included in the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) in order to fight diseases such as HIV/AIDS.
Meeting in Geneva for its sixty-first annual session, the Commission adopted a ‘resolution on access to medication in the context of pandemics such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.’ The resolution called upon countries to improve access to treatments and technologies vital for public health. It also urged them to use national legislation to make use of TRIPS flexibilities, and to take these flexibilities into account when entering into international trade agreements.
TRIPS Agreement provisions that countries can use in the context of a public health emergency include compulsory licensing and parallel imports, though the Commission did not specifically mention these. The resolution also called upon states to conduct an impact assessment of the effects of international trade agreements with regard to public health. The resolution follows a trend of intellectual property provisions in developing countries being strengthened through bilateral and regional trade agreements rather than in multilateral fora such as the WTO or the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).
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