Fractures in IP, Trade, and Health: Centering a Public Health Framework

International trade and public health have long been in tension, with intellectual property law partially to blame. Patent protections have created strong pharmaceutical monopolies, making medicines unaffordable in many countries, blocking access to healthcare, and disrupting global supply chains. Attempts to remedy these public health failures have largely been fractured, with stop-gap efforts failing to meaningfully resolve the structural issues at the intersection between access, innovation, and regulation. Rather than treating these areas as separate domains, this book advocates for a holistic regulatory approach that centers public health while recognizing the deep interconnections with IP and trade. The authors argue that advancing innovation and global development requires recalibrating legal and policy frameworks to prioritize global public health as a necessary foundational requirement for robust trade and development. Tracing the evolution of these tensions across six chapters, the book critiques current regulatory reform efforts and proposes principles for a new public health framework: a treaty that places health not in opposition to trade and IP, but firmly at the center.

About the Author

Srividhya (Sri) Ragavan is the Dean's Research Chair and Director of International Programs at Texas A&M University School of Law. She is also a Fellow at Texas A&M's Institute for Healthcare Access. Sri's research lies at the intersection between intellectual property and international trade law, with a focus on how IP frameworks affect access to healthcare and the affordability of medicines. She is the author and co-editor of books published by Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, and Routledge. An elected member of the American Law Institute and a named IMPACT Scholar, she has worked with UN ESCAP and WIPO, and has received multiple honors including Fulbright awards, PESCA and GIAN grants, and the Dhirubhai Ambani University Fellowship. Swaraj Paul Barooah is Senior Expert at SpicyIP, the leading repository for analysis and commentary on Indian intellectual property law and policy. He is also currently the coordinator of the SpicyIP Academy where his work focuses on training the next generation of IP policy analysts. With over fifteen years of experience in IP law and policy analysis, Swaraj focuses on knowledge governance in pharmaceutical innovation, dgtl rights, and access to knowledge, particularly in developing countries. He has taught guest courses on international IP at institutions in India and abroad, including for the WIPO-NLUD-CGPDTM Joint Masters Program and the TAMU-CII Executive Education Program, and at the Inter University Centre for IPR Studies. An alumnus of NALSAR University of Law and UC Berkeley School of Law, Swaraj has held leadership roles at the Centre for Internet and Society and Increasing Diversity in Increasing Access (IDIA).