ABSTRACT
Global inequality in medicine access, on a disproportionate scale, remains a persistent human rights problem. In 2008, the United Nations Rapporteur on the Right to the Highest Attainable Standard of Health reported 15 per cent of the world’s population in developed countries consumed about 90 per cent of the world’s pharmaceuticals.1 The World Health Organization (WHO), Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) similarly observed, in a joint 2010 report, only 36 per cent of the people in need of HIV/AIDS medication in low-and middleincome countries received medication. While this was an improvement from 28 per cent in 2008, the figures still fell far below the conservatively set universal access estimate of 80 per cent,2 regardless of various philanthropic efforts to address the so-termed ‘90/10’ access gap.3
