Access to Affordable HIV/AIDS Drugs: The Human Rights Obligations of Multinational Pharmaceutical Corporations
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ACCESS TO AFFORDABLE HIV/AIDS DRUGS:
THE HUMAN RIGHTS OBLIGATIONS OF
MULTINATIONAL PHARMACEUTICAL
CORPORATIONS
Lissett Ferreira*
INTRODUCTION
The United Nations has characterized the impact of the HIV/AIDS
crisis in Africa as no less destructive than that of warfare itself.1 In
developed nations, the widespread availability of life-prolonging
HIV/AIDS drugs has turned AIDS from a death sentence into a
manageable and treatable illness.2 But in developing countries, which
account for ninety percent of infected people globally, the
overwhelming majority of HIV/AIDS sufferers cannot afford these
life-saving treatments.' In South Africa, where the average daily
J.D. Candidate, 2003, Fordham University School of Law.
1. Press Release, United Nations, In Address to Security Council, Secretary-
General Says Fight Against AIDS in Africa Immediate Priority in Global Effort
Against Disease, SG/SM/7275 AFR/200 SC/6780 (Jan. 6, 2000) (statement of U.N.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan), http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2000/
20000106.sgsm7275.doc.html (last visited Nov. 5, 2002) (on file with the Fordham Law
Review). As of December 2001, an estimated 28.1 million people in sub-Saharan
Africa alone were infected with HIV. Joint United Nations Programme on
HIV/AIDS & WHO, AIDS Epidemic Update at 2, 3, U.N. Doc. UNAIDS/01.74E,
WHO/CDS/CSR/NCS/2001.2 (2001), available at http://www.unaids.org/worldaids
day/2001/Epiupdate200l/EPIupdate200_len.pdf [hereinafter UNAIDS Update].
2. See James Thuo Gathii, Construing Intellectual Property Rights and
Competition Policy Consistently with Facilitating Access to Affordable AIDS Drugs to
Low-End Consumers, 53 Fla. L. Rev. 727, 733-34 (2001) (stating that drug treatment
has quadrupled the median survival time for Americans diagnosed with AIDS from
one to four years and decreased mortality rates by seventy-five percent); Judy Rein,
International Governance Through Trade Agreements: Patent Protection for Essential
Medicines, 21 Nw. J. Int'l L. & Bus. 379, 379 (2001) (Significant public and private
investment, particularly in the United States, converted this killer into a manageable
chronic disorder for many in the developed world.).
3. See UNICEF et al., Sources and Prices of Selected Drugs and Diagnostics for
People Living with HIV/AIDS 5 (2001), available at http://www.unaids.org/
acc-access/access-drugs/Sources05Ol.doc [hereinafter Sources & Prices]; Rein, supra
note 2, at 379. In sub-Saharan Africa, where approximately seventy-five percent of
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Access to Affordable HIV/AIDS Drugs: The Human Rights Obligations of Multinational Pharmaceutical Corporations
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