Event details
The South Centre organized a workshop at the World Trade Organization’s Public Forum 2018 to discuss the relation between intellectual property and health, with a focus on the use of TRIPS Flexibilities to Achieve SDGs. The ambassadors of Brazil – Mr. Evandro Didonet, China – Mr. Xianchen Zhang, and India – Mr. J. S. Deepak participated as speakers and highlighted their countries’ efforts towards ensuring access to medicines. This session explored the links between intellectual property, trade and the achievement of the human right to health. Particularly, it aims at discussing how the full use of TRIPS flexibilities to protect public health and provide access to medicines for all (as set by SDG 3.b) contributes to a trade framework favourable to sustainable development and innovation. By sharing concrete experiences from around the world, empirical findings and the normative grounds of TRIPS in relation to both development and human rights, including the Doha Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health, the session will delineate how to adequately balance “wealth and health” in an inclusive, sustainable, and equitable manner for all countries and peoples.