ABSTRACT
The c Owl)-19 pandemic and other major public health emergencies of international concern occurred in the last zo years remind us of the close interconnections between human, animal, and environmental health and the need for collaborative and multisectoral approaches to address complex health threats. These outbreaks also serve to highlight the importance of timely sharing of pathogens, which are used to characterise the causative agent of an outbreak, understand its spread, and develop diagnostics, antiviral treatments, and vaccines. Despite their relevance to preparedness and response, neither One Health nor pathogen sharing are grounded within the International Health Regulations (IHR). This paper analyses the existing institutional and normative gaps within the IHR, including examining how other regimes within the international legal landscape have sought to 'fill the gaps'. We explore possible solutions and make proposals to strengthen interinstitutional cooperation and coordination through mechanisms alternative to IHR reform or a global pandemic treaty.
ABSTRACT
This paper evaluates the powers both legal and non-legal which the World Health Organization has at its disposal in an emergency. We demonstrate that the Director General's emergency decision-making powers are of concern for the relationship between the organization and Member States. We further question to whom it owes accountability as an international institution, and how to enhance it. Existing literature shows how the legal responsibility of international organizations for wrongful acts constitutes one type of accountability. Internal and external institutional inquiries into the WHO's decision-making, though not deriving in legal responsibility, also represent distinct models of accountability. Against this backdrop, the article looks at past and ongoing events where the WHO Director-General's emergency decision making powers gave way to different modes of accountability, both within and beyond the organization. We provide concluding remarks focused on the need for enhanced accountability in the WHO's exercise of emergency decision-making powers.
ABSTRACT
This article critically examines proposals for a pandemic treaty. It highlights the misalignment between the treaty proposal and the actual problems of global health governance by showing that the treaty can't solve the multiple problems of global health cooperation. In November 2021, the World Health Assembly (WHA) is hosting a special session to discuss the proposed plans for a pandemic treaty. Despite the fact that there are scant details concerning the treaty, the proposal has gained considerable support in both the academic community, and at the international level. While we agree that in the wake of the numerous governance failures during COVID-19, we need to develop appropriate global solutions to be able to prevent, detect, respond to, and recover from future global health crises-and that such mechanisms should be rooted in global equity-we disagree, however, that this pandemic treaty, currently, is the most appropriate way in which to achieve this. Indeed, notions of global community, solidarity, fairness are far removed from the reality that we have seen unfolding in the actions of states responding to the pandemic. This is the crux of the tension with the proposed treaty: the balance between the ideal cosmopolitan worldview held by those in power in global health, and the practice of national security decision-making witnessed in the last 18 months. Indeed, we do not believe that a pandemic treaty will deliver what is being extolled by its proponents, and it will not solve the multiple problems of global cooperation in global health that supporters believe it will.
ABSTRACT
The International Health Regulations (IHR), of which the World Health Organization is custodian, govern how countries collectively promote global health security, including prevention, detection, and response to potential global health emergencies such as the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. While Article 44 of this binding legal instrument requires countries to collaborate and assist each other in meeting their respective obligations, recent events demonstrate that the precise nature and scope of these legal obligations are ill-understood. A shared understanding of the level and type of collaboration legally required by the IHR is a necessary step in ensuring these obligations can be acted upon and fully realized, and in fostering global solidarity and resilience in the face of future pandemics. In this consensus statement, public international law scholars specializing in global health consider the legal meaning of Article 44 using the interpretive framework of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. © Margherita M. Cinà et al., 2020.