Access to Medicines to Guarantee Women’s Rights to Health in Nigeria

Abstract

In making the argument for increased accessibility to health treatments in Nigeria, the article makes the case for women’s access through the lens of human rights to health. Human rights principles and norms provide the underlying basis on which this article argues for the enhancement of women’s access to medicines in Nigeria. Essentially, human rights provide the jurisprudential justification and legal force in which this study argues for the consideration, interpretation and circumvention of patent rights in favour of increased access to medicines in Nigeria. The article argues that states Nigerian government and relevant authorities have a human rights duty to meet the basic healthcare needs of their people, including ensuring that patent rights do not interfere with the accessibility to medicines. This analysis also aims to examine how human rights can influence the interpretation and enforcement of patents for broader access to medicines. The analysis in this paper is relevant because it demonstrates the constituent reality of the access to medicine phenomenon, and exposes the issues taken for granted in examining the effects of patent rights on medicines on particular vulnerable groups such as women. Thus this article, from a patent standpoint, will focus on the challenges that women face in accessing healthcare and medicines in order to make a case for their increased access, as a means of realising their rights to health in Nigeria.Equally, it is argued that human rights principles can serve as a basis for the resolution of the conflict between private patent rights and public healthcare in favour of health and human welfare where the proprietary rights undermine access to important health treatment. Moreover, human rights norms provide the legal basis for a broader interpretation and implementation of the flexibilities in favour of accessing affordable pharmaceuticals.

Keywords: Access to medicines, women, Nigeria, right to health, pharmaceutical patents

DOI: 10.7176/JLPG/86-05

Publication date:June 30^th 2019