Of Medicines and Markets: Intellectual Property and Human Rights in the Free Trade Era

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.

Author: Angelina Snodgrass Godoy
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: 06/05/2013
Pages: 208
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.90lbs
Size: 8.90h x 5.90w x 0.80d
ISBN: 9780804785617

Review Citation(s):
Choice 02/01/2014

About the Author
Angelina Snodgrass Godoy is Helen H. Jackson Chair in Human Rights and founding director of the Center for Human Rights at the University of Washington in Seattle. She is the author of Popular Injustice: Violence, Community, and Law in Latin America (Stanford University Press, 2006).

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