Canada's Access to Medicines Regime: Social Justice Attempted & Subsequent Failure?

There is often a gap between promises made politically, and the will to implement these promises meaningfully. One example is Canada's Access to Medicines Regime (CAMR). CAMR was enacted following a World Trade Organization Decision that changed global intellectual property rules, allowing countries to issue compulsory licenses for the production and export of domestically-patented medicines to countries without pharmaceutical manufacturing capacity. However, in the three years since CAMR was implemented, this attempt to improve medicines access to the world's neediest appears instead to be largely a failure of Canadian humanitarian efforts. There has been only a single agreement between a Canadian generic company and a country wanting to import Canadian generics (Rwanda) because of the complexities in both the Canadian legislation and the WTO exemption. The Conservative government in Canada seems more interested in protecting the patent rights of the multi-national companies operating in Canada than in helping to ensure that developing countries are getting low cost medications. Canada is not alone in failing to export generic medicines. Norway, the Netherlands and the European Union have also taken the same route as Canada and have amended their legislation to allow the export of medicines under compulsory licenses and these initiatives have all to date led to no exports. The failure to effectively utilize the WTO exemption reinforces the criticism that this exemption is overly burdensome and that other ways need to be found to get around the restrictions on the exports of generic medicines.