Access to essential medicines to guarantee women's rights to health: The pharmaceutical patents connection

Abstract

Indubitably, everyone is entitled to the right to a standard of health. While women's rights to health and life are clearly established in legal instruments, having these laws without the fulfilling them will not serve the people they are meant to safeguard. For this reason, this article argues that the right to health and life includes the right to an effective access to available, good quality, safe and effective medicines that are equally affordable to everyone. Essentially, human rights principles, norms and standards provide strong moral support for the consideration of women's access to medicines, in view of the adverse impact of international and national patent law on public health. It is also submitted that ensuring this access to a choice of essential medicines at an affordable price requires the state to ensure that the granting of patent rights to inventors and pharmaceutical companies does not hinder access to essential drugs. In the same vein, the article argues for the design, interpretation and implementation of patent rights to respond to the right to health, life and access to medicines.