An approach to the WTO ministerial declaration on the TRIPS agreement and public health

Journal of International Economic Law

Volumn 5, Issue 1, 2002, Pages 212-219

  García Castrillón, Carmen Otero ^a  

^a UNIVERSIDAD COMPLUTENSE DE MADRID   (Spain)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0344152342     PISSN: 13693034     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Review

References (12)

1. S. Charnovitz, 'The Legal Status of the Doha Declaration', 5(1) JIEL (2002).
2. African Group, Bangladesh, Barbados, Bolivia, Brazil, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Haiti, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Jamaica, Pakistan, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Venezuela. IP/C/W/312 or WT/GC/W/450.
3. Australia, Canada, Czech Republic, Japan, New Zealand, Switzerland, and United States of America. IP/C/313.
4. Flexibility is often gained through exceptions to the ordinary regime, however, this is not always the case, as in international exhaustion of intellectual property rights, for instance.
5. In Reformulated Gasoline (WT/DS2/R) and in Alcoholic Beverages (WT/DS,8, 10-11/AB./AB/R), the Appellate Body held that Articles 31 and 32 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of the Treaties constituted customary rules of interpretation of Public International Law for purposes of the Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU) Article 3.2.
6. This issue was discussed in the 'Workshop on Differential Pricing and Financing of Essential Drugs', Hobsjor (Norway), 8-11 April 2001, organized by the WIPO and WTO Secretariats, Norway's Foreign Relations Ministry and Health Global Council. As I see it, differential prices regimes should be framed within a special regime in favor of developing and least developed countries. C. Otero García-Castrillón, 'Acceso a los medicamentos: las patentes y el Acuerdo sobre los derechos de propiedad intelectual relacionados con el comercio', accepted for publication in Boletín de Información Comercial Española.
7. This issue was discussed in the 'Workshop on Differential Pricing and Financing of Essential Drugs', Hobsjor (Norway), 8-11 April 2001, organized by the WIPO and WTO Secretariats, Norway's Foreign Relations Ministry and Health Global Council. As I see it, differential prices regimes should be framed within a special regime in favor of developing and least developed countries. C. Otero García-Castrillón, 'Acceso a los medicamentos: las patentes y el Acuerdo sobre los derechos de propiedad intelectual relacionados con el comercio', accepted for publication in Boletín de Información Comercial Española.
8. This is without disregarding the sanctioning of anticompetitive practices and the dependent patents dimensions, which anyway refer to effects on national market and on the use of other patents nationally.
9. Panel on Canada's protection of pharmaceutical patents; WT/DS114/R 17 March 2000, at 170.
10. However, though it has not been mentioned in the Declaration, these countries would be required to comply with TRIPS trademark rules from 1 January 2006; and the vast majority of medicines, even generics, are commercialized under a trademark. In this regard, any possible extensions of the transition periods should be decided by the TRIPS Council following Article 66 prescriptions.
11. On one hand, they aimed for Members exercising the utmost restraint in initiating and pursuing dispute settlement procedures on measures adopted or implemented to protect and promote public health, particularly by developing countries. On the other hand, the intention was that under no circumstances could Members base their complaints against measures adopted to protect or promote public health, particularly by developing countries, on GATT '94 Article XXIII: 1(b) and (c).
12. The legal nature of the Declaration must be taken into account.