ABSTRACT
The intensifi cation of economic globalization that has taken place in recent decades has been facilitated by the internationalization of intellectual property institutions. Although this process started at the end of the nineteenth century, it was accelerated in the twentieth century by the adoption of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement) developed and negotiated in the context of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) Uruguay Round (1986-1994) (World Trade Organization, 1994). The internationalization of intellectual property rights (IPRs) regimes has increasingly limited the room left to countries to exercise their sovereign rights and discharge their obligations in public health, including those subsumed under the right to health (Cullet, 2003; Yamin, 2003; Reinharz & Chastonay, 2004). On the one hand, IPRs promote innovation in pharmaceuticals but, on the other hand, they limit access to the resulting products. In addition, such rights only promote certain types of research and development (R&D)—those addressed to the most profi table markets.
