This article examines the content of the human right to water. It starts from the premise that the right is firmly anchored in international and national law. It thus moves beyond debates concerning either the existence or the legal status of the right in favour of a more in-depth discussion of its content. It focuses on India, a country where the right is well entrenched at a broad level but where the actual content of the right is not well defined in legal instruments. It considers some of the aspects of the right that are most critical at this juncture from a policy perspective, including the need to ensure that the universality of the right in theory is matched by universal realisation, the need for the core content of the right to be provided by the state and the need to recognise the right as including a free water component if it is to make a difference for the overwhelming majority of poor people.
The question of access to drugs in developing countries is at present largely influenced by the TRIPS Agreement. TRIPS compliance in the field of health requires substantial changes to existing patent laws in some countries. These changes must be analysed in the context of the spread of epidemics like HIV/AIDS and in relation to other international obligations that states have, for instance, with regard to the human right to health.
Intellectual property rights treaties today have significant impacts on the realization of some human rights like the right to health. This article examines the extent to which TRIPS encompasses flexibility for developing countries to be able to foster better access to medicines. It also examines these issues from the point of view of human rights and considers, in particular, the ways in which the relationship between human rights and intellectual property can be improved in international law.
Human rights and intellectual property protection are two distinct fields that have largely evolved separately. Their relationship needs to be re-examined for a number of reasons. First, the impacts of intellectual property rights on the realization of human rights such as the right to health have become much more visible following the adoption of the TRIPS Agreement. Second, the increasing importance of intellectual property rights has led to the need for clarifying the scope of human rights provisions protecting individual contributions to knowledge. Third, a number of new challenges need to be addressed concerning contributions to knowledge, which cannot effectively be protected under existing intellectual property rights regimes. This article examines the different aspects of the relationship between intellectual property rights, human rights, and science and technology related provisions in human rights treaties. It analyzes existing knowledge protection-related provisions in human rights treaties. It also examines some of the impacts of existing intellectual property rights regimes on the realization of human rights. Further, it analyzes the recently adopted General Comment 17 on Article 15(1)(c) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and proposes an alternative broader reading of this provision focusing on traditional knowledge.
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