AIDS, TRIPS and 'TRIPS plus': the case for developing and less developed countries

The signing of the TRIPS Agreement in 1995 (as part of the WTO Agreement) provoked a radical change in the healthcare situation of the poorest countries. It obliged these countries to comply with the intellectual property rights (IPR) legislation in force in the Northern countries. It ended a situation in which the poorest countries were able either to produce generic drugs locally or to import them at a low price. Given the development of the AIDS epidemic, the consequences of this agreement were dramatic. In this chapter, we shall examine the situation created by TRIPS in the French-speaking countries of Sub-Saharan Africa. In this zone (where AIDS has struck most severely) the application of TRIPS, combined with existing regional IPR agreements (known as the Bangui Agreements), has created a legal situation particularly prejudicial to healthcare.