Access to health innovations should be informed by a human-centered approach that reconciles intellectual property rules and policies with human rights. Under the current intellectual property regime, innovators are entitled to patent monopolies, regulatory exclusivities and other protections that prevent especially lower-income households from accessing life-saving medical products and technologies. As the COVID-19 pandemic and other national, regional and global health exigencies show, many important vaccines, treatments, diagnostics and other health technologies remain unaffordable or inaccessible to millions of people, many of whom suffer or die as a result.
Workshop Agenda
October 29, 2022
9:00-9:15 Thomas Pogge and Peter Yu: Introductory Remarks
9:15-9:55 Joshua D. Sarnoff, Professor of Law, DePaul University: Duties, Obligations, IP, and the Right to Enjoy the Benefits of Scientific Progress and Its Applications
9:55-10:35 Emmanuel Kolawole Oke, Senior Lecturer in International Intellectual Property Law, Edinburgh Law School: Patent Rights, the Right to Health, and the WTO’s Dispute Settlement System (via Zoom)
10:35-11:15 Aidan Hollis, Professor of Economics, University of Calgary: Human-Centered Health Innovation: An Economist’s Perspective
11:15-11:30 Coffee Break
11:30-12:10 Ana Santos Rutschman, Professor of Law, Villanova University School of Law: The Role of Technology Specificity in Promoting a Human-Centered Approach to Medicines During Transnational Public Health Crises
12:10-12:50 Cynthia M. Ho, Clifford E. Vickrey Research Professor and Director, Intellectual Property Program, Loyola University Chicago School of Law: A Human Rights-Centered Approach to Recalibrating Trade Secret Over Health Innovations (via Zoom)
12:50-2:00 Lunch
2:00-2:40 Rochelle Dreyfuss, Pauline Newman Professor of Law and Co-Director, Engelberg Center on Innovation Law & Policy, New York University School of Law: Human Rights in a Technological Age
2:40-3:20 Peter K. Yu, Regents Professor of Law and Communication and Director, Center for Law and Intellectual Property, Texas A&M University: Can the Right to Science Reduce the Tension Between Intellectual Property and Human Rights?
3:20-3:35 Coffee Break
3:35-4:15 Thomas Pogge, Leitner Professor of Philosophy and International Affairs and Director, Global Justice Program, Yale University: Title TBA
4:15-4:55 Chidi Oguamanam, University Research Chair in Sustainable Bio-Innovation, Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Global Knowledge Governance, Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa: Of Rights and the Benefits of ‘Scientific’ Innovation in Health: Pragmatic Policy Pathways for Indigenous and Local Communities (via Zoom)
4:55-5:35 Genevieve Wilkinson, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Law, University of Technology Sydney: Recognising Children’s Rights in Human Centred Approaches to Health Innovation (via Zoom)
Sunday, October 30, 2022
9:00-9:40 Brook K. Baker, Professor of Law, Northeastern University School of Law: Human Rights to Medicines and the Fruits of Scientific Research in the Pre-Access Phase
9:40-10:20 Jorge Contreras, James T. Jensen Endowed Professor for Transactional Law and Director, Program on Intellectual Property and Technology Law, S.J. Quinney College of Law, University of Utah: Open Biology 2.0 – COVID-19 as a Catalyst for Renewed Interest in Open-Source Biomedical Research
10:20-11:00 Srividhya Ragavan, Professor of Law and Director of India Programs, Texas A&M University School of Law: Public Health Treaty: A Prescription for Pharmaceutical Access? (via Zoom)
11:00-11:10 Coffee Break
11:10-11:50 Mark Eccleston-Turner, Senior Lecturer in Global Health Law, King’s College London and Michelle Rourke, CSIRO Synthetic Biology Future Science Fellow, Law Futures Centre, Griffith University: Purchasing the Right to Health with Virus Samples – The Rhetorical Appeal of Access and Benefit Sharing
11:50-12:30 Diane Desierto, Professor of Law and Global Affairs, Keough School of Global Affairs, University of Notre Dame: Title TBA (via Zoom)