S/L/22. The suit of the South African Government by 39 pharmaceutical corporations, concerning imports of 'genuine' AIDS drugs.

This assignment aims to analyse the case concerning the patent law, and particularly compulsory licensing and parallel importing for drugs. The case arose from the dispute about AIDS drugs between the South African Government and 39 international pharmaceutical corporations. The battle was about the industry's patent protection rights and patients' rights to affordable medicines. In order to analyse the laws applied and those that could be applied to solve the dispute, we will examine TRIP's agreement, Medicines and Related Substances Control Amendment Act (South Africa - 1997), International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, and WTO rules concerning Anti-dumping. In the end we will try to confront the case with similar cases and analyse the differences in their solutions and laws applied. We will also make some assumptions on how the analysed case will affect the international laws concerning patents for drugs and solutions of disputes that could arise in this field.