Establishing Coherence: The Right to Access to Medicines, Pharmaceutical Patents and the WTO Medicines Decision

Abstract

The era of globalization has had a fundamental impact on international relations and international law. From 1970 through 1997, the number of international treaties more than tripled2. This has lead to a situation where States are increasingly bound to treaties that may appear to include conflicting norms, i.e. a situation where adherence to one provision may lead to the violation of another. How to govern this fragmentation of international law is a challenge. The relationship between the right to access to medicines and protection of pharmaceutical patents is a current example of this ambitious task.