Of medicines and markets [[electronic resource] ] : intellectual property and human rights in the free trade era / / Angelina Snodgrass Godoy

• Record Nr.: UNINA9910792029003321
• Autore: Godoy Angelina Snodgrass
• Pubbl/distr/stampa: Stanford, California, : Stanford University Press, c2013
• ISBN: 0-8047-8657-7
• Descrizione fisica: xiv, 183 p. : ill
• Collana: Stanford studies in human rights
• Disciplina: 338.4/7615109728
• Soggetti: Drug accessibility - Central America; Drugs - Patents; Free trade - Central America; Human rights - Central America; Intellectual property - Central America; Pharmaceutical policy - Central America; Right to health - Central America
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Note generali: Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references and index.
• Nota di contenuto: Frontmatter -- Contents -- Foreword -- Acronyms and Abbreviations -- Acknowledgments -- 1. Trading Health for Wealth -- 2. A Primer on Pharmaceutical Intellectual Property -- 3. Market Failures and Fallacies -- 4. Local Politics, Strange Bedfellows, and the Challenges of Human Rights Mobilization -- 5. Patient Advocacy and Access to Medicines Litigation -- 6. Writing Globalization’s Rule Book -- Notes -- References -- Index
• Sommario/riassunto: Central American countries have long defined health as a human right. But in recent years regional trade agreements have ushered in aggressive intellectual property reforms, undermining this conception. Questions of IP and health provisions are pivotal to both human rights advocacy and "free" trade policy, and as this book chronicles, complex political battles have developed across the region. Looking at events in Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Guatemala, Angelina Godoy argues that human rights advocates need to approach intellectual property law as more than simply a roster of regulations. IP represents the cutting edge of a global tendency to value all things in market terms: Life forms—; from plants to human genetic sequences—are rendered commodities, and substances necessary to sustain life—medicines—are restricted to insure corporate profits. If we argue only over the terms of IP protection without confronting the underlying logic governing our trade agreements, then human rights advocates will lose even when they win.