Human Rights Frames in IP Contests

Balancing Wealth and Health: Global Law and the Battle over Intellectual Property and Access to Medicines in Latin America. Rochelle Dreyfuss & César Rodríguez-Garavito, eds. (2013)

13 Pages Posted: 5 Jul 2013 Last revised: 2 Feb 2015

See all articles by Molly K. Land

Molly K. Land

University of Connecticut School of Law

Date Written: July 3, 2013

Abstract

This essay examines the role of human rights norms and framing in the processes of domestic change around intellectual property rights and access to medicines described in the case studies in this volume. By comparing those cases with the experience of activism around medicines in South Africa and Brazil, the essay draws some preliminary conclusions about the legal, societal, and cultural conditions that may lend themselves to the use of human rights frames in activism around intellectual property issues. The essay also begins tracing the trajectory of human rights framing in debates about the impact of intellectual property on health. Although discussions about norm diffusion often assume a general downward directionality from the international to the domestic, the normative framing of intellectual property as a human rights issue was a bottom-up enterprise. The essay concludes by considering the reasons that human rights frames gave way to frames of “access to knowledge” or A2K, arguing that a complete strategy for challenging the effect of intellectual property rights on access to medicines requires the use of both frames.

Keywords: human rights, intellectual property, framing, access to knowledge, access to medicines, international law, South Africa, Brazil

Suggested Citation

Land, Molly K., Human Rights Frames in IP Contests (July 3, 2013). Balancing Wealth and Health: Global Law and the Battle over Intellectual Property and Access to Medicines in Latin America. Rochelle Dreyfuss & César Rodríguez-Garavito, eds. (2013), Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2289308

Molly K. Land (Contact Author)

University of Connecticut School of Law ( email )

65 Elizabeth Street
Hartford, CT 06105
United States

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