Human Rights and Intellectual Property Law in the Globalized Era

Abstract

Human rights and intellectual property have on the whole evolved largely independently. Intellectual property rights framework have never emphasized the existence of links with human rights and generally stopped at noting the socio-economic dimension of intellectual property protection. On the human rights side, certain links with intellectual property rights were made early on with the introduction of intellectual property rights clauses in the international human rights treaties. Nevertheless, it is only in the context of emerging crises linked to the role of intellectual property rights in the realization of the rights to food and health in particular that links between the two fields have been explored in a much more systematic way. Our abstract considers questions related to the links and the impacts of existing intellectual property rights on the realization of human rights. It analyses in particular links between medical patents and access to drugs, a component of the human right to health. The second section moves to analyze issues related to the recognition of intellectual property rights as human rights. It considers in particular the proposed general comment of the Committee on Economic Social and Cultural Rights (ESCR Committee) and the broader implications of human perspective, for instance, for traditional knowledge holders.