Brazil has an excellent anti-AIDS programme. It makes copycat versions of expensive brand-name drugs, making the treatments available for the majority of the population at an affordable cost. Grounding this measure are actually the rules of the WTO itself. This
“terrible”, “human rights-violator”, organisation… who would have though. The responsibility of WTO in terms of human rights is not the issue of this small statement. My point is just that the law is not so bad after all. I am more and more convinced that the law "in the books" is close to being meaningless in itself. Law in action is where the best solutions can be found. Particularly in a system where “constructive ambiguity” and indeterminate concepts rule, countries have the means to use it in a human rights friendly way, and they have the legal obligation to do so. The principles of WTO on patents are important in economic terms (and this is not a dirty word!). However, Brazil show us how the flexibilities in the intellectual property rules can be used to promote access to medicine for all. Maybe the common resistance of other countries, intimidated by the American giant, to follow this example is not even justified most of the times. It is to be seen if the US would be willing to pay the political price of retaliating in a situation such as this one that happened in Brazil. I seriously doubt it.
