We’re excited to invite you to this year's Harry Street Lecture, a highlight of our academic calendar. The lecture will be delivered by recently appointed Acting Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa Professor David Bilchitz, University of Johannesburg & University of Reading, as he delves into a critical contemporary issue: the accessibility of life-saving medications.
• Date: Wednesday, 29 January 2025
• Time: 5.30pm-8pm, Drinks Reception from 6.30pm
• Location: Roscoe Building: Theatre B, University of Manchester and online
This is a hybrid event- Please reserve your place via Eventbrite
Using the recent National Institute for Health Care and Excellence (NICE) decision regarding the use of breast cancer drug Enhertu in the NHS as a compelling case study, the lecture will question the current media focus on the government's obligations and instead shift the focus to the responsibilities of pharmaceutical companies to make life-saving drugs available at affordable prices. You can read further details regarding the lecture content and Professor Bilchitz below.
The lecture will run for roughly 45 minutes followed by a Q&A and drinks reception starting at 6.30pm. Online attendees will be able to submit questions via the Zoom chat function and a member of staff will read them to Professor Bilchitz on your behalf.
Lecture Abstract:
In 2024, the National Institute for Health Care and Excellence (NICE) decided that a life-saving breast cancer drug Enhertu could not be made available on the NHS in England and Wales, largely due to the high price being charged by pharmaceutical corporations. Much of the subsequent outcry in the media has been focused on government’s obligations to ensure access to life-saving drugs. Yet, very little discussion has been focused on the obligations of pharmaceutical companies to make such life-saving drugs available at an affordable price. This lecture will consider the question of whether corporations have positive obligations to take active steps to assist in the realization of fundamental rights, and, if they do, how to determine the extent of their obligations. First, I will consider the case for recognizing that corporations have positive obligations. I will provide reasons for rejecting the position in existing international frameworks such as the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights which confine corporate obligations to those involved in avoiding harm to fundamental rights. Secondly, I will turn to consider how to determine the substantive content and extent of those obligations. I will provide an analytical framework for addressing this question which involves multiple factors and a decision-making procedure for reaching a final determination. Throughout, I will use the example of access to life-saving medications by pharmaceutical manufacturers to illustrate the approach. Lastly, I consider how a recognition of positive obligations of corporations can practically be enshrined in law. I evaluate a promising approach adopted in India requiring corporations to spend 2% of their net profits on contribution to social projects and demonstrate, how suitably modified, such an approach can be harnessed to ensure corporations play their part in helping to realise our most basic of rights.
Speaker Biography:
David Bilchitz is a Professor of Fundamental Rights and Constitutional Law at the University of Johannesburg and Director of the South African Institute for Advanced Constitutional, Public, Human Rights and International Law (SAIFAC). He is also a part-time Professor of Law at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom. He was appointed as an Acting Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa from February to May 2024, the first full-time academic to have been appointed directly to act as judge on the Court in over 20 years.
He was Secretary-General of the International Association of Constitutional Law from 2013 to 2020 and is now a Vice-President of the Association. He was also chief organiser of the World Congress of Constitutional Law which brought constitutional academics from around the world to Johannesburg in 2022. He is also a Member of the Academy of Sciences of South Africa. He was awarded a Von Humboldt Foundation Fellowship in 2017 and between August 2017 and August 2018, served as a Visiting Research Professor at the Humboldt University in Berlin. He has a BA (Hons) LLB cum laude from the University of the Witwatersrand and an MPhil and PhD from the University of Cambridge.
Bilchitz has 2 monographs, 5 co-edited books, 1 textbook, 25 book chapters and 41 journal articles. His writing covers a range of topics including writings on proportionality, socio-economic rights, business and fundamental rights, the separation of powers, the rights of non-human animals, the tension between religion and equality and LGBT+ rights. He has advocated publicly for fundamental rights in various campaigns and submissions including being the legal advisor to a coalition of LGBT organisations in the successful campaign for same-sex marriage in South Africa and, later, in the successful campaign for a moratorium on the culling of elephants. He has also developed a blog – African Law Matters – for the discussion and advancement of fundamental rights on the African continent and been a founding partner in the Constitution Hill Debating Tournament, which educates learners about constitutional rights in South Africa.
