Access to medicine remains a core challenge of global health, despite progress in bringing affordable HIV/AIDS drugs to developing countries. Yet, the debate seems to have shifted. For a long time it focused on two specific issues: (1) whether and to what extent international trade agreements that strengthen patent protection hindered states and NGOs in their efforts to promote access to life-saving medicines at reasonable costs; and (2) whether access to life-saving therapies could be seen as a component of the right to health. The challenge for access to medicines appears at this point, however, to be more political than legal. Indeed, from a legal perspective, it seems fairly settled that international trade agreements permit, under certain conditions, the production and sale or export of generic versions of pharmaceutical products that address an important public health threat in developing countries. The concept of the right to health has often been invoked in this international context. An increasing number of domestic court decisions also explicitly acknowledge that access to life-saving therapies can be seen as a component of the right to health.