A/HRC/17/43 including for particularly vulnerable groups, such as women, children, drug addicts and people living with HIV-AIDS, was underlined. Lengthy and cumbersome registration procedures for medicines should be simplified to facilitate and allow timely access to medicines, without compromising their quality and safety. Some representatives reiterated the need for coherence in discussions among OHCHR, WHO and WIPO to avoid duplication, and recommended that more empirical studies should be carried out in order to evaluate the realization of the right to access to medicines in practice. States agreed that the international community should do more to ensure that people have unhindered access to medicines, and that the approach should be preventive rather than curative. 23. In response to the above issues, Dr. Mirza drew attention to the WHO Global Strategy and Plan of Action, which covers the transfer of technology at the global, regional and national levels. While the national medicines list should be the basis for discussion, the WHO medicines list had 17 patent-protected medicines in 2003, and the list would be expanded in cooperation with WIPO. He noted the importance of ensuring the quality and public availability of simple generic medicines. 24. A number of State representatives requested to be part of WHO-WIPO talks on intellectual property and to participate in the deliberations, and expressed interest in learning what the consequences would be for States that were not a party to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. B. Panel 2: Emerging issues and existing obstacles to providing access to medicine as a fundamental element of the full realization of the right to health 25. The Special Rapporteur opened the second panel and again emphasized the most significant obstacles to access to medicines, namely, issues relating to intellectual property rights and competition seen as the most important element in the reduction of prices and making medicines affordable to all. He referred to 2001, when the HIV crisis was at its peak, and when the prices for antiretroviral medicines dropped from $15,000 to less than $400 per patient per year. The availability of cheaper generic antiretrovirals from developing countries inevitably led to competition and price reduction. The Special Rapporteur stressed that the only effective competition was that provided by generic medicines. 26. The need to ensure that multinational companies adopt a corporate social responsibility approach was becoming increasingly urgent. It was of particular importance in the context of the right to health; while States had primary responsibility to ensure the enjoyment of the right to health, this responsibility was shared with other national and international actors, such as pharmaceutical companies. Although pharmaceutical companies had the legitimate aim of improving shareholder value, their main societal goal must be to improve access to medicines, which had to be considered in the context of other social and development objectives, as well as human rights. 27. The Special Rapporteur also cautioned that more stringent measures regarding patents had been introduced. Until recently, patents violations were not subject to criminal procedures (as opposed to trademark or copyright). However, criminal remedies were envisaged to be introduced in patent law, thus shifting the decision of whether patents were infringed to customs inspectors and drug regulators. Moreover, adoption of so-called anticounterfeiting measures might further limit access to medicines. Although the actual number of counterfeit medicines was very small, the conflation between generic drugs and 8 GE.11-11842