Human Rights and Intellectual Property Rights: A Study of Relationship and Conflict

Human rights and protection of intellectual property are two different disciplines which have progressed significantly separately. For a number of reasons, their connection should be re-examined. Since adopting the TRIPS agreement, the effects of intellectual property rights have been considerably more obvious on the achievement of human rights such as the right to health. Further, the growing relevance of intellectual property rights has led to the need to clarify the extent of rules on human rights that protect individual knowledge contributions. Furthermore, there are a number of new issues in terms of knowledge contributions that cannot be adequately safeguarded by present frameworks on intellectual property rights. This article focuses at some of the consequences on human rights of existing intellectual property systems.