ABSTRACT
The international Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines, having its early foundations in Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF), demonstrates the significance of civil society in international norm-setting towards guaranteeing the realisation of the right to health across a diversity of national and regional circumstances. The importance of flexibilities within trade rules relevant to access to health was expressly addressed in the Fourth World Trade Organisation (WTO) Ministerial Conference of 2001, setting the Doha Development Agenda. The decision to implement Paragraph 6 waived the obligations of Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) members to manufacture under a compulsory licence for the domestic market only. Provision for compulsory licensing, as well as the political and commercial freedom to pursue these mechanisms, will be one of the most significant tools by which to safeguard the beneficial interest in health inventions. Sub-Saharan Africa has the most serious HIV/AIDS epidemic in the world with consequently devastating impacts on development in this region.
