ABSTRACT
The entry of the TRIPS Agreement has seen the developing countries and the LDCs suffer from the excessive burden of obligations imposed under the Agreement to embrace and implement a higher standard of intellectual property (IP) protection. One of the areas where the impact of the Agreement is most felt is on accessibility to affordable medicines for frontline treatment of diseases in developing countries and LDCs, where the majority of the HIV/AIDS sufferers come from. This inevitable plight, although well known and posited by the developing countries and LDCs during the Uruguay Round of negotiations, was overlooked. It is argued that the WTO did not create a level playing field in the TRIPS negotiation in the lead-up to the entry into force of the Agreement in 1995, which effectively handed over the advantage to the developed countries, thereby creating a two-tier system in the intellectual property rights arena and making it impossible for developing countries and least-developed countries to achieve the objective of access to affordable medicines.
