FAULT LINES IN THE INDIAN PATENT REGIME RELATING TO PHARMACEUTICAL AND SECTOR AND CHALLENGES TO SUSTAINABLE ACCESS TO AFFORDABLE MEDICINES TO POOR - A POSSIBLE WAY OUT

Abstract

Right to good health and wellbeing is an inalienable basic human right and is recognized in a number of national and international legal instruments. Part IV of the Constitution of India, which enshrines ‘Directive Principles of the State Policy’ makes a reference to Constitutional commitments in Articles 39(f) and 47, to provide for health care Provision of universal healthcare for its people is a fundamental duty of every nation, more so, of the signatories to the 1948 ‘Universal Declaration of Human Rights’, and the ‘International Covenant on Economic, Social, and cultural Rights’India is a signatory to both the Declaration and the Covenant, and its track record on human rights, is periodically subjected to peer review by member states of the UN Human Rights Committee, as part of United Nations’ Universal Periodic Review process in Geneva.at periodic intervals. Article 18 of the Constitution of the World Health Organization (WHO) a specialized agency of the United Nations, concerned with international public health. declares that ‘the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of healthis one of the fundamental rights of every human being without distinction of race, religion, political belief, economic or social condition’, and recognizes that the objective of the WHO shall be the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of health