| The availability of medicine means that patients can obtain necessary material medicine resources timely,such as medicine,vaccines,medical devices,etc.,and on this basis,have the ability to bear the price of medical products.In other words,to obtain high-quality medicine that can be used,affordable,safe and efficient.Pharmaceutical patent protection can promote research,development and innovation capabilities of right holders and also help protect public health.However,the current international investment law sets a relatively high standard of protection for pharmaceutical patents,especially the treaties led by developed countries,which highlights this.a little.In the post-epidemic era,the accessibility of medicine is the key to responding to public health crises.Therefore,the most urgent problem to be solved in post-epidemic era is to ensure that the public can get medicine they need at a reasonable price under the premise of protecting the legitimate rights and interests of patentee.In this paper,under the background of the global public health crisis caused by COVID-19 epidemic,this paper discusses the prominent problem of medical accessibility.Through the basic qualitative analysis of public health crisis,medical accessibility and their connection,this paper analyzes the performance of global health crisis aggravated by COVID-19 epidemic.On the basis of analyzing the causes of medical accessibility problems,it is proposed that improving public access to medicine is the key to resolve public health crisis.Starting from the fact that the current international investment law doesn’t pay enough attention to the accessibility of medicine and cannot meet the public’s demand for medicine,this paper introduces the typical international investment arbitration cases related to public health,and points out that there are some problems in the arbitration practice,such as the contradiction between the accessibility of medicine and the value orientation of indirect expropriation,and the insufficient protection of the rights and interests of generic pharmaceutical companies.At the same time,under related clauses in international investment law,this paper also analyzes some other phenomenons.For example,over-protects the patent holders of medicine,and only uses the exception clauses with principled provisions and limited functions to protect public health,which leads to the limited accessibility of medicine.Finally,on the basis of the foregoing,this paper sums up and analyzes the countermeasures and suggestions to improve the accessibility of medicine from the treaty text and arbitration practice,such as setting up separate provisions to improve the accessibility of medicine,recognizing that all countries implement reasonable patent compulsory licensing system,constructing special exceptions for the protection of medical patents,establishing reasonable treaty interpretation mechanism,etc.,and clarifying the reform direction of international investment law to ensure the accessibility of public medicine. |
