A human rights framework for intellectual property, innovation and access to medicines (Book Review)

In the past year, there has been push by academics, scholars and policy-makers alike to re-situate the debate over access to medicines from the spheres of intellectual property, trade, and innovation policy to the context of human rights and public health. In 2015, Joo-Young Lee published A Human Rights Framework for Intellectual Property, Innovation and Access to Medicines with Ashgate. The work is concerned with addressing barriers to access to medicines: A vast number of people remain without access to life-saving and other essential medicines. The cost of medicines is one major factor that affects access to medicines. Another significant problem is the lack of medicines particularly relevant to health needs of people in developing countries. Both issues are associated with an intellectual property system that has been used as a dominant tool to provides incentives for innovation (p. 1). The book seeks to analyse intellectual property and human rights in the context of disputes over patent law and pharmaceutical drugs. It provides a survey of a number of the key areas in the debate over access to essential medicines.