Political Economy of Pharmaceutical Patents

This book provides a fresh, multidisciplinary, and exciting look at the making and remaking of pharmaceutical patents at the GATT/WTO, by utilising a Coxian political economy of continuity and change in the global political economy (GPE). Marcellin focuses on the role of the transnational drug industry in the making of the patent provisions in the original TRIPS Agreement and consequently, the role of the African Group at the WTO in the remaking of those patent provisions. Contents: Introduction; Explaining 'who gets what' in international trade decision-making; North/South controversies in the TRIPS negotiations: between hegemony and domination?; Consensus formation in the TRIPS negotiations: agendas, agents and turning points; Legitimacy and the TRIPS agreement: globalised law as 'consent without consent'; The post-TRIPS context and the intensification of a contested terrain: the rise of the African Group (AG) at the WTO?; Conclusion; List of interviewees; References; Index.