ISDS, Intellectual Property Rights and Public Health

Investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions in bilateral investment treaties and other trade or investment treaties allow foreign investors to challenge, in a secretive tribunal of highly paid lawyers, any government action that interferes with investors’ ‘legitimate’ expectations of profit. The ISDS process, despite lacking the safeguards and transparency of domestic legal systems, has the potential to drastically affect the lives of millions of people, particularly when it affects national intellectual property policies or decisions concerning public health.