Evaluation of trips compliance in global south countries and emerging issues in pharmaceutical patents: Legal and Economic Dimensions of Global IP Governance and Medicine Access

The intricate balance between public health and patent-based monopolies received formal multilateral attention during the Doha round of negotiations. While the mechanism of TRIPS flexibilities was elaborated as a viable solution for developing countries confronting public health emergencies and medicine accessibility barriers, it has proven insufficient in addressing structural vulnerabilities exacerbated by rapid global integration, epidemiological transitions, and cross-border contagion. While the HIV/AIDS epidemic served as the initial test case for public health governance under the modern TRIPS architecture, it was merely the precursor to complex twenty-first-century crises. The invocation and scope of TRIPS flexibilities have sharply divided the negotiating parties: developed nations, backed by proprietary pharmaceutical interests, strive to defend exclusionary patent monopolies and commercial returns; conversely, developing and least-developed countries seek affordable therapeutics to preserve baseline standards of life and healthcare resilience. This tension does not signify indifference in the Global North, but underscores that industrialized economies possess established manufacturing and infrastructural capabilities that the Global South structurally lacks. This paper explores the economic foundations of pharmaceutical patenting, analyzes the interface between patent exclusivity and public health access, and evaluates the North–South institutional divide across multilateral patent governance, with special emphasis on the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent WTO Ministerial decisions.