The potential social costs of TRIPS for poor countries have become particularly evident in terms of access to medicines, particularly for antiretroviral drugs (Lanoszka, 2003). Prior to TRIPS, many countries did not patent drugs or granted less than the robust 20-year protection that was subsequently introduced. However, current TRIPS rules push costs to prohibitive levels by allowing monopoly prices and excluding cheaper “generic” alternatives. In 2001, for example, a group of 39 pharmaceutical companies brought the South African government to court to prevent their use of compulsory licenses for generic drugs, while strong public pressure eventually forced it to drop the case (Sell-Prakash, 2004). However, the incident showed how multinationals are trying to use TRIPS to pursue private profits at an obvious cost to the common good. Although some flexibilities have been identified in the interpretation of the agreement in light of public health concerns, as has already been mentioned, they often remain untapped due to costs, complexity and the threat of trade retaliation (O`Farrell, 2008). One of the main criticisms of the TRIPS agreement is that it offers an inappropriate uniform standard for different states. Developed countries generally already have an adequate level of protection against intellectual property rights and are home to the overwhelming majority of rights holders who enjoy enhanced protection (Chang, 2001: 23). Most developing countries, on the other hand, could have considerable costs if national standards rose to the required level – by depriving scarce resources from other important sectors – and by increasing payments to rights holders in the developed world. A 2001 World Bank report suggests that in the short term, TRIPS effectively represents an annual transfer of $20 billion in capital from technology-importing developing countries to industrialized technology-exporting countries (cited in Dutfield-Suthersanen, 2004). Similarly, Philip McCalman (2005) estimates that the beneficiaries of TRIPS are only a handful of industrialized countries, including the United States and various Western European countries. Countries, from India to Brazil, and even South Korea, suffer from their dependence on technology imports.

While most countries could still benefit in the long run, McCalman argues that the benefits are nevertheless widely distributed among the major industrialized countries. The Intellectual Property Rights Commission reached similar conclusions in its 2002 report on intellectual property rights and development – it assessed the argument that a stronger system of intellectual property rights would offset the long-term implementation costs and concluded that the agreement on aspects of trade-related intellectual property rights (TRIPS) is an agreement of international law between World Trade Organization (WTO) member states. It sets minimum standards for the regulation of different forms of intellectual property by national governments, as is the case for nationals of other WTO member states. [3] The TRIPS agreement was negotiated at the end of the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) between 1989 and 1990[4] and is managed by the WTO.