1. ACKNOWLEDGING THE FLEXIBILITIES OF THE TRIPS AGREEMENT: ENSURING THE RIGHT TO ACCESS TO MEDICINES OR A STRATEGY OF PASSIVE REVOLUTION?
- Author:
- Sevgi BALKAN-ŞAHİN
- Publication Date:
- 10-2018
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Alternative Politics
- Institution:
- Department of International Relations, Abant Izzet Baysal University, Turkey
- Abstract:
- The Doha Ministerial Declaration on the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement and Public Health adopted in November 2001 clarified the right to use the TRIPS flexibilities to promote public health. Examining the hegemonic struggle of opposing social forces from a neo-Gramscian perspective, the paper attributes this outcome to the strategy of trasformismo used by market-oriented social forces to legitimize the policies of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and prevent resistance against the market-driven TRIPS Agreement. It argues that although non-governmental organizations (NGOs) such as Medecins Sans Frontieres, Third World Network, and Oxfam worked as a counter-hegemonic force to ensure the access of least developed countries to generic versions of patented drugs, flexibilities confirmed by the Doha Declaration can be seen more as a strategy of trasformismo to absorb counter-hegemonic ideas than the counter-hegemonic groups’ successful incorporation of the right to ensure public health into the TRIPS Agreement.
- Topic:
- Health, World Trade Organization, Hegemony, Health Care Policy, NGOs, and Public Health
- Political Geography:
- United States, Europe, Asia, and North America