How Countries of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) can use the World Trade Organisation and the European Community flexibilities for better access to affordable HIV/AIDS Medicines

This paper discusses the ways in which countries of the Southern African\n\nDevelopment Community (SADC) can maximise the patent-related advantages that\n\nare available to developing countries and regions by flexibilities offered by the World\n\nTrade Organisation (WTO) and the European Community (EC). Article 31 of the\n\nAgreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPs) provided only\n\nlimited derogation to the exclusive rights that a patent holder may have under Article\n\n28 of TRIPs. The entry into force of the agreement in developing countries entailed\n\nthat important (cheaper) generic medicine manufacturers such as Brazil, China, India\n\nand South Africa would not be able to use TRIPs to supply needed medicines. This\n\nproblem became known as the ‘Doha Paragraph 6 Problem’ as it was included in the\n\n2001 Doha Declaration under the section of TRIPs and public health. The\n\nDeclaration called for a solution to the problem by the end of 2002. Although this\n\ndeadline was not met, an interim solution to the problem was worked out by the\n\nTRIPs Council of the WTO. This interim solution provided generous options for countries in need. The decision was integrated into the TRIPs Agreement as a\n\npermanent amendment in December 2005. In the EC, Regulation 816/2006 was\n\nadopted to apply the system which had been crafted at the WTO. So far only one\n\ncountry (Rwanda) has used the system to purchase affordable HIV/AIDS medicines\n\nfrom Canada. SADC is a region that has high levels of prevalence rates of HIV/AIDS.\n\nThe WTO and EC flexibilities have not been used by SADC countries. One of the\n\nadvantages of the flexibilities is that benefits are specifically guaranteed to regional\n\ntrade arrangements like SADC’s. Why has there been use an under-utilisation of the\n\nflexibilities? This paper argues that elements such as lack of awareness on the\n\nSADC side, the complicated nature of the procedures in the use of the flexibilities,\n\nand the actions of international charities explain the limited use of the system in SADC. It advocates for a more proactive involvement of SADC and its member states\n\nin the negotiations on the various ways in which access to medical products\n\n(especially second line HIV/AIDS medicines) can be eased for SADC’s citizens.

Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.