Human Rights System Guidelines on the Benefit from Scientific Progress in Access to Medicines

Abstract

Abstract Health innovation and research has become an economic and profitable activity. Market practices have exposed inequalities, scarcities and inequities in access to treatments and have significantly reduced the decision-making power of governments in the field of public health. Documentary research on the human right (HR) to health (Art. 12) and its interrelationship with the right to benefit from scientific progress (Art. 15, b) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) on access to medicines in three bodies of the UN system - the ICESCR Monitoring Committee (CESCR), the Human Rights Council (HRC) and World Health Organisation - over the last 10 years. The documents address three main topics. Market: marketing restrictions, price controls and using flexibility in pharmaceutical patents to reduce costs and produce generics. Innovation: patent protection without barriers to access to medicines for people in need. Health system interventions: giving priority to economic efficiency and sustainability by institutionalising health technology assessment, selecting essential medicines, developing clinical guidelines and integrating and linking regulatory agencies. These normative guidelines minimise the ethical, political and legal dimensions of the human right to enjoy scientific progress in access to medicines as a priority value that should guide public and private action, and emphasise technocratic and financial measures that seek to reconcile the liberal and social logic of the ICESCR. Key messages • In order to maximise the guarantee of human rights in access to medicines, economic and financial considerations should play only a residual role in human rights. • To give countries greater decision-making power at the global health, the scope of the right to benefit from scientific progress and its applications in health care needs to be expanded.