With several countries inching back towards a sense of normalcy by expanding their vaccine drives, the focus has now turned to how to prevent such a crisis in the future. The pandemic has resulted in severe criticism of the WHO and its handling of the pandemic, and also of the lacklustre responses and lack of preparedness of governments across the globe. Both of these factors combined have underscored the need for greater global coordination going forward.
Keeping this in mind, at the 74th World Health Assembly meeting last month in Geneva, 30 leaders came out in support of an international instrument to enhance cooperation during future pandemics. The negotiations for this “pandemic treaty” are set to commence on November 29. However, several questions about the prospective agreement remain unanswered.
While addressing the World Health Assembly, World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared that the pandemic treaty is an “idea whose time has come.” He spoke of the need for a “generational commitment” that “outlives budgetary cycles, election cycles, and media cycles.” He also identified the root cause of the problem as the global community’s reluctance to share data, technology, and resources. To this end, he called for an international framework that allows for an early warning system, ensures equitable access to resources, and sets up an emergency workforce.
However, discussions on implementing such a vision should be wary of establishing an international mechanism that simply replicates the existing one. Tedros’ statement focuses on the need to share information and resources and to increase cooperation between members of the WHO during such crises. However, the WHO’s constitution already allows the organisation “to stimulate and advance work to eradicate epidemic, endemic, and other diseases,” through which the Organization can call for international cooperation and coordination amongst member states.
These powers are further strengthened by the WHO’s International Health Regulation (IHR), which also provides provisions to prevent the global spread of diseases by empowering the Secretary-General to declare a “public health emergency of international concern.” This provision already mandates the sharing of information and resources during pandemics. Like the IHR, the pandemic treaty, too, focuses on pandemic response and not pandemic prevention, once again leaving countries no less vulnerable to future pandemics.
The IHR is binding on all members of the WHO. Therefore, with an established mechanism in place, engaging in fresh negotiations for another document on the issue allows for existing obligations to be re-examined and revised. Consequently, negotiations on the pandemic treaty must be centred around strengthening existing mechanisms. In fact, while the WHO-commissioned IHR Review Committee and the Independent Oversight and Advisory Committee have supported the call for an international treaty for pandemics, they have also highlighted that the lack of rules on the issue was not the concern. They posit that the WHO’s primary obstacles are its lack of resources and its structural constraints caused by the lack of implementation of existing rules. Hence, if the focus remains on formalising a new pandemic treaty, policymakers must look to enhance the powers of the WHO and the IHR by making compliance with the norms mandatory.
Moreover, restarting negotiations for an international mechanism for pandemic preparedness also overlooks the fundamental problem of countries operating in their own self-interest during pandemics. Thus, the focus of any negotiations on a pandemic treaty must also be on the needs of low- and middle-income countries to secure access to critical medical infrastructure. Even several developed countries, including France and the United States, saw their infrastructure collapse at the hands of the pandemic. Hence, alongside focussing on a future response to such an outbreak, the resources must be expended on strengthening medical response facilities in countries across the world. This, rather than reworking existing laws, will secure tangible changes to the international community’s drive to achieve the right to healthcare, thereby helping more impoverished countries secure their populations during a future pandemic.
In addition, diving into a discussion regarding a pandemic treaty must not be done without acknowledging the protectionist behaviour of several nations that resulted in certain lower-income countries facing an even greater shortage of medical equipment during the outbreak. In fact, some of the strongest advocates of the pandemic treaty have themselves been accused of hoarding vaccines and medical supplies. For instance, a report by the British Medical Journal said that the United Kingdom had pre-purchased around 340 million vaccines. While this allows the UK to set aside five doses per citizen, other countries are struggling to secure enough jabs to inoculate even 40% of their population, which is required to achieve herd immunity. Concerningly, reports suggest that 90% of the vaccines have been administered in merely ten countries.
This protectionist behaviour has even negatively impacted several members of the European Union, another vociferous advocate for the pandemic treaty, with Germany, France, and the Czech Republic imposing export bans on Personal Protective Equipment to avoid shortages at home. Furthermore, international actors like the US and the EU, who have extended their support for the treaty, have simultaneously strongly opposed a waiver of the TRIPS provisions before the World Trade Organisation, which would allow countries like India to ramp up production and help meet the global demand for vaccines. Hence, any negotiations on the pandemic need to begin with an acknowledgement of this protectionism, which worsened the outbreak in several countries.
Ultimately, the fact that countries will always work in their own self-interest at the expense of collective security means that any mechanism that could pave the way for international interference in its domestic matters is likely to be denied or be toothless in nature. Hence, while the issue with the current international mechanism on health is that it has no teeth, a treaty that allows international investigation or accountability of governments following a failure to curb an outbreak will never stand the test of the international community. In this light, while discussions on a pandemic treaty are certainly promising, onlookers must be wary of the fact that it is unlikely to contain the necessary mechanisms and provisions to contain the next pandemic through international coordination.
Why We Should Be Wary of Discussions on a Pandemic Treaty
As the call for a pandemic treaty grows, the international community should learn from the experience of the COVID-19 pandemic to avoid another failed international response to another pandemic.
June 16, 2021
SOURCE: GETTY IMAGES