ABSTRACT
The developing countries and least developed countries (LDCs) from Africa, realising the difficulties the TRIPS Agreement would put them in, had vigorously campaigned against the inclusion of IP rights protection within the multilateral trading system. One of the chief areas of concern was the difficulty of accessing affordable medicines under the TRIPS regime. The developing countries and the LDCs gained a few concessions in the post-TRIPS era in the form of the Doha Declaration, but the ground realities were difficult to manoeuvre and there were more impediments to invoking the flexibilities than originally perceived. As is well known, South Africa suffers greatly from the HIV/AIDS epidemic and has found it extremely difficult to access affordable ARVs for treatment. South Africa, like other affected sub-Saharan African countries, has come to rely on generic ARVs for treatment. South Africa was to soon find that the opportunity to invoke the emergency provisions of the Agreement in times of need to access essential medicines for its citizens was not an easy task. This chapter studies the extreme difficulties encountered by South Africa, both from transnational pharmaceutical corporations and developed countries, in seeking to implement the TRIPS Agreement into its domestic legislation and utilise the flexibilities, which resulted in protracted court battles, and also street protests in South Africa and abroad.
