TRIPS Agreement and Public Health: The Post Doha Crises

Abstract

Though the Doha Declaration on TRIPS Agreement and Public Health has clarified that public health has predominance over private commercial interests, the victory of public health over trade interests appears to be momentary. The big pharmaceutical industries and the developed countries, using trade sanctions, effectively prevented developing countries from making full use of the flexibilities in the TRIPS Agreement procured by the Doha Declaration. Ultimately free trade agreements are made use of by developed countries to impose TRIPS plus obligations on developing countries. These developments once again ascertain that trade forum has its limits in protecting public health interests against trade interests.