This study examines the alleged conflict of WTO law with international human rights law, using a prominent example of such a conflict: that between international patent law, i.e., the TRIPS Agreement, and access to medicine as guaranteed, e.g., by the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The highly controversial political issue of the appropriate application of international patent law to life-saving medicines gained the world's attention during the discussion about the price of AIDS medication, but recent examples also include patents on medicines for bird flu and f ... More

This study examines the alleged conflict of WTO law with international human rights law, using a prominent example of such a conflict: that between international patent law, i.e., the TRIPS Agreement, and access to medicine as guaranteed, e.g., by the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The highly controversial political issue of the appropriate application of international patent law to life-saving medicines gained the world's attention during the discussion about the price of AIDS medication, but recent examples also include patents on medicines for bird flu and for anthrax. The book discusses the patent law and the international human rights law involved, distinguishing between obligations under different human rights instruments. It introduces both areas of law and then explains the concept of conflict between legal regimes and why patent law and human rights law are in conflict. The current state of international law on the conflict between legal regimes and the origin of such conflicts is analyzed, covering such issues as hierarchy in international law and introducing the concept of ‘factual hierarchy’ of regimes. The book then turns to the role of human rights law in the WTO system, concluding that such law currently is limited to aiding the interpreting of the WTO Agreements. It shows how a further integration of human rights law into the WTO regime could be achieved and describes the progress made towards accommodating human rights concerns within the TRIPS Agreement, culminating in the first ever decision to amend a core WTO Agreement in December 2005.