Access to Medicines in The Developing World: The Curious Case of TRIPS, DOHA and Concerns Under US-Colombia FTA

Abstract

The author through this research project has focused on the fact that how systems around access to medicines has been reshaped 25 years down the line, thanks to a plethora of bilateral and multilateral agreements. On a broader level, (though not expressly stated) a comparison has been shown between what we call ‘accessibility’ and ‘trading profitability’. This endeavour has been undertaken to evaluate the pattern of inverse proportionality between trade developments and depreciation of access to medicines. Evaluation criteria for this exercise largely derive from a brief contextual sketch of the TRIPS with that of the Doha Declaration, and further suggests how enforcing a carmadarie alone can give successful results in achieving accessibility towards medicinal products (of course without giving up on sustainability). Later on, in the manuscript, a critique is presented on the neoliberal strategies of developed economies to impose harsh TRIPS+ regulations on the developing and the underdeveloped economies, thus inadvertently barring their access to medicines. As a consequence of this, a further detailed constructive criticism on the specific elements of such regulations is adduced as well. In the confines of the last section, perspectives from the US-Colombia FTA has been discussed to first trace the legislative background and existing national circumstances behind the enforcement of such truce (read FTA) and; secondly to see the complex intermingling of TRIPS+ provisions and their effect on the access to medicines from the lens of the US-Colombia FTA.

Keywords: TRIPS, DOHA, US-Colombia, FTA