TRIPS and enforcement

The suspension of the Doha round has not meant an end to controversies over TRIPS. A meeting of the TRIPS council 25-6 October degenerated somewhat over attempts by the EU to give a powerpoint presentation about what it was doing in terms of enforcement of IP. This was against the backdrop of an attempt by the EU, US, Japan and Switzerland to have the question of enforcement included in the ambit of the TRIPs Council (see http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/index.php?p=432&res=800&print=0 - thanks as ever to IP-Watch for most excellent reports).

The basis for some developed countries pursuing this seems to be objections to piracy, as against fears that more stringent enforcement mechanisms may not be in the interests of developing countries' economies. The debate can never advance for long, however, without more general questions of TRIPS and public health etc being raised. Is the question of enforcement in fact to be viewed more broadly, in terms of outcome, rather than process? The drafting of TRIPS would not seem to permit this, with the substantive minimum standards and requirements for injunctions etc being quite distinct. Is the pressure on both sides an echo of more fundamental concerns?