Least developed countries (LDCs) generally enjoy some exemptions under the WTO TRIPS Agreement. Despite these exemptions, patents continue to pose a major challenge to access to affordable medicines in the East African Community (EAC), especially with respect to the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The EAC is a regional economic bloc made up of 6 states, with 5 of the member states currently ranked as LDCs by the United Nations. This article argues that the implementation of the patent protection standards following the model adopted in the Trans-Pacific Partnership is likely to further exacerbate the access to medicines conundrum of the EAC.

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It is arguable that the most significant feature of the maiden Paris Convention is the creation of a remarkably broad national policy space which allowed Union members to balance the implementation of required obligations with the need to occasionally attend to national exigencies. Thus, a member may choose not to offer industrial property protection if national interests would be best served by doing so. While subsequent revisions to the Paris Convention chipped away at national flexibilities, the most strident attack to national flexibilities occurs under the Agreement for the Trade‐Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights and the period after it. This paper puts the almost‐unnoticed whittling down of national flexibilities in international patent agreements in historical perspective. It subsequently discusses four ways through which this development could exacerbate access‐to‐medicines in low‐and‐middle‐income‐countries.

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