Private sector: Right to health responsibilities of pharmaceutical companies

This chapter explores the evolution of corporate responsibility for human rights under international law. It also highlights the implications of the developments for the responsibility of pharmaceutical corporations to respect the right to health. The chapter examines the role of the pharmaceutical industry in shaping the trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights agreement. It focuses on the evolution of the human rights responsibilities of corporate actors under international law. International investment law is essentially a body of several investment agreements (i.e. bilateral investment treaties and free trade agreements) entered into between states, and the decisions of investment tribunals. Typically, an international investment agreement contains certain standards of protection such as rules: prohibiting host states from discriminating in favor of domestic investors (national treatment); prohibiting discrimination between foreign investors (most-favored-nation treatment). In such a case, the investor's obligation to perform has as its source domestic law.