The Curtailment of the TRIPS Agreement as an Option to Facilitate Access to Medicines

Abstract

The debate about the role of patent protection as a barrier to access to medicines has taken the frontlines in recent years. Concurrently, calls for the possibility of terminating the TRIPS Agreement have gained momentum and are becoming an appealing prospect by many proponents in high- and middle-income countries. Such propositions are formulated in consideration of the constraints and the monopoly of rights and innovations that originator drug companies -mainly residing in high level income states- have illustrated so clearly during the Covid-19 Pandemic. The circumstances, therefore, that existed when negotiating TRIPS have shifted clearly from the circumstance and spirit of what TRIPS was initially set out to achieve.

The ongoing reviews of TRIPS which include the Doha Declaration, amendments of Article 31 and more recently the Waiver on TRIPS provide strong evidence that the system is not functioning as originally envisaged. However, does this warrant the termination or rather the curtailment of TR