Volume 3: Issue 1 (2007)
Foreword: HIV/AIDS and African Sustainable Development
Bjorg Sandkjaer
Richard Elliott
Abstract: The global AIDS crisis has highlighted the importance of expanded and sustainable access to lower-cost, generic medicines in realising the development aspirations of many low- and middle-income countries. In 2003, WTO members decided to relax a restriction in the TRIPS Agreement, ostensibly to permit countries with insufficient pharmaceutical manufacturing capacity to make effective use of compulsory licensing by importing generics. Canada and a handful of other jurisdictions have implemented that WTO decision, but none of these regimes have yet been used to supply any developing country with any medicine. While Canada’s law suffers from a number of features that hinder its usefulness, more fundamentally the flaw lies in the underlying WTO decision. This article outlines the relevance of WTO rules on intellectual property to the global inequity in access to medicines and reviews key developments at the WTO underlying such legislation. It then discusses the key features, positive and negative, of Canada’s law, and the two initiatives to date to use it. Finally, it presents reforms that would streamline the legislation, making it more likely to meet the needs of both developing country purchasers and potential generic exporters; the alternative regime presented here would bypass the flawed 2003 WTO decision but remain TRIPS-compliant.
Reproductive Health and HIV: Do International Human Rights Law and Policy Matter?
Sofia Gruskin, Mindy Jane Roseman & Laura Ferguson
Abstract: Protecting reproductive rights is understood to be a critical component of working to ensure reproductive health. Likewise, promotion and protection of human rights is considered key to an effective AIDS response. As HIV and reproductive health are increasingly joined in health and development strategies and initiatives, it is critical that human rights play a central role in these efforts. Still to be achieved is the translation of gender equality, and other forms of equality, into the lived experience of people’s lives.
While international human rights law to counteract vulnerability in the context of HIV and reproductive health has evolved slowly, the time is right to translate rhetoric into reality. With due attention to its shortcomings, the corpus of international law and policy to promote and protect reproductive rights in the context of HIV can provide effective tools. Better use of what exists is needed, as is documentation of successful interventions to support replication where possible.
AIDS and Working Adults: The Need for Both Public and Private Sector Responses
Eliza Petrow, Stephanie Simmons & Jody Heymann
Abstract: Of the estimated total 39.5 million HIV/AIDS infections worldwide, 37.2 million are among working age adults. Addressing the needs of working adults who are HIV infected and also serve as HIV/AIDS caregivers is therefore crucial to addressing the impact of the pandemic on individuals, families, and nations. This can only occur with both the contributions of the public and private sectors. While the public sector needs to take responsibility for universal access to treatment and prevention, other essential features require private sector involvement, such as ensuring that both HIV/AIDS-infected adults and caregivers have the flexibility needed to continue to work. This article reports on SA Metal, a South African company that demonstrates that it is economically feasible not only for large firms, but also for smaller companies to effectively meet the needs of HIV/AIDS infected individuals and caregivers.
