“Intellectual Property Rights and Human Right to Health”

Abstract

Intellectual Property Rights raise a number of concerns with regard to their impacts on the realization of an important aspect of sustainable developmental law i.e. the realisation of the human rights. Human rights include cultural heritage, traditional knowledge, and right to health, science and technology and access to knowledge.  Intellectual property law and human rights law have largely evolved independently. However, with the broadening scope of patents in areas related to basic needs such as health, and recent developments in the health sector itself, the links between the two fields are becoming increasingly obvious and direct, necessitating further consideration of the relationship between the right to health and patents on medicines, in particular in the case of developing countries. With regard to the human right to health there is a direct link between patents, the price of drugs, and access to drugs.