Access to Medicine and TRIPS Agreement: A Mapping of the Tradescape

Abstract

The tumultuous tradescape, which references the landscape of the trade regime, provides the background for this chapter and hopes to outline a historiographic mapping of the struggles of diverse actors for access to medicine rupturing established global structures over three generations. The historiographic mapping traces the changes in the patent discourse terrain by analyzing the metamorphosis of IP ideology, particularly patents. In doing so, this larger book captures the different sets of actors such as states, transnational business corporations, civil society groups, and the (re)framing of patent discourses within and among these actors. Our intergenerational analyses of the legal issues surrounding the access to medicine question provides an insight into the structures within which the actors have operated along with the dynamic relationship between structures and actors. The term structure refers to the economic system within which various actors operate. The influence of structures over the behavior of actors and in turn, the influence exerted by actors over structures eventually caused generational shifts in the debate on the role of patents, trade, and access to medication. The book examines the influences over established global protocols, national and international agreements, and state and non-state entities. In doing so, we acknowledge that the history of patent harmonization discourse is a story of dynamic actors, whose interactions with established structures continue to shape the global patent regime.