ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the driving forces behind the creation of global markets, the institutional structures of World Trade Organization (WTO) and Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), and the legal and organizational interfaces created by them. It explains the importance of intellectual property rights for pharmaceutical companies and summarizes the process of the internationalization of intellectual property protection. The chapter discusses the implications of TRIPS for the interests of the industry as well as for realizing the human right to health, in order to provide context for the conflicts and the building of the informal access norm. Public goods have been characterized by two traits: non-rivalry in consumption, and non-excludability in access. The conflicts that arise around access to medicines and intellectual property have their basis, in the different modes of governance that play a role in the interface between institutions politically responsible for public health and private for-profit organizations.
