Several public interest groups will file a complaint today with the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights alleging that the Obama Administration’s US trade policy violates international human rights obligations. Specifically, the groups charge the White House has used the US Trade Representative’s ‘Special 301′ status toward foreign intellectual property law standards to promote policies that restrict access to affordable medicines.

“Although the 2010 Report shows some improvement, the Obama administration continues using Special 301 to pressure developing countries to adopt escalating intellectual property rules that are not required by any international agreement and that will negatively impact access to medicines,” says Sean Flynn, associate director of the Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property at the George Washington University College of Law, in a statement.

“The United States continues to breach…international human rights obligations by using its ‘Special 301′ program to threaten trade sanctions against countries that do not agree to increase intellectual property protections beyond those required by the WTO TRIPS agreement,” he continues. The obligations referred to are known as the TRIPS agreement (here is a primer).

The public advocacy groups, which include Health GAP and Foundation for AIDS Rights, say recent Special 301 reports “press developing countries such as Thailand and Ecuador, to limit compulsory licenses for needed meds; restricted India, Brazil and the Philippines from defining the scope of patentability; implemented linkage between drug registration and assertions of patent protection in Chile, the Dominican Republic, Pakistan and Columbia; and adopt US or EU-style data exclusivity rules that create drug monopolies independent of patents in dozens of countries.”