Negotiations about the World Health Organization’s (WHO) global pandemic preparedness instrument are moving slower than expected, as member states seem to be stuck around a few issues and officials fear they might not even meet next year’s ambitious deadline, Euractiv wrote on Thursday, September 21st.
The so-called Pandemic Treaty, as we reported before, has been in development since 2021, when the WHO—following the initiative of the EU Commission—established the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) and tasked it with negotiating the details.
The aim of the instrument would be to establish a global framework of binding health regulations as well as preparedness and response policies and to make it mandatory for all 194 member states to follow the WHO’s guidelines during pandemics, including quarantine measures, border closures, and vaccine requirements.
The treaty would only serve as the regulatory backbone of this worldwide pandemic infrastructure and is set to be complemented by “a wide range of digital products” to track and deal with contagious outbreaks currently in the development of the WHO and EU’s Global Digital Health Certification Network (GDHCN), including its flagship project, a global digital vaccine passport system—branded by critics as something out of a ‘totalitarian dystopia.’
Behind schedule
The final treaty is planned to be adopted at the next World Health Assembly on May 24, 2024, but negotiators have little to show for it so far, with not even a “negotiating draft” published as of yet.
“I think it’s going to be challenging for member states to meet the [May 2024] deadline,” said Daniela Morich, manager and advisor at the Governing Pandemics Initiative, hosted by the Global Health Centre. “My perception from the last session is that the process is moving slowly.”
Tasked with tabling the first drafts during regular meetings behind closed doors, the INB Bureau—consisting of just six countries, including the Netherlands, South Africa, Japan, Brazil, Thailand, and Egypt—has so far produced three versions of the text and promises to be ready to publish a final one by October 16th.
Due to a number of controversial issues, however, WHO members are unlikely to adopt it as the official negotiating text during the INB’s upcoming meeting in November, further delaying the start of the finalizing process that would need to involve all 194 member states.
Equity vs. profits
According to Euractiv, the most severe disagreements are not even about the question of giving up full control to the WHO over all public health measures during a hypothetical pandemic, but ensuring that the Third World will not be left behind like in the first period of the COVID crisis.
For example, the developing nations advocate for the sharing of pathogens and research data so that they can start vaccine production just as early as others, as well as for equity-based access to pandemic-related products, such as Western vaccines and other forms of medical countermeasures.
One option that’s being considered is giving 20% of globally produced vaccines and other antiviral medicine to the WHO, to be donated or sold at “affordable prices” to developing nations. This, however, is not even close to what these countries and their advocates had in mind.
“So basically 20% of the supply would go to 80% of the world population, and 80% of the supply would go to 20% of the population. That’s called equity. I mean, it’s just crazy,” Mohga Kamal-Yanni, a senior health policy advisor at the People’s Vaccine Alliance, said, adding that it’s the developing nations that should be disproportionately favored instead.
On the other hand, developed nations will have to put up most of the infrastructure’s massive investment funds, so it will be hard to convince some of them to give up final products or even intellectual property rights.
What about sovereignty?
In the West, most opposition to the proposal focuses on the fundamental sovereignty issue instead, with a number of watchdogs, analysts, and senior public officials warning that the Pandemic Treaty and its accompanying global vaccine pass could be the biggest power grab in history.
“Pandemic passports equal a death sentence for millions and the abrogation of rights for the non-compliant,” American former professor Michael Rectenwald commented on the EU-WHO deal for the development of the new passport earlier this year. “The WHO should be stopped before it completes the construction of a global totalitarian system.”
During the European Parliament’s International COVID Summit in May, several MEPs also spoke out against the looming dangers of the Pandemic Treaty. “It would be safer to sign contracts with the Colombian drug cartel than with the WHO,” Croatian MEP Mislav Kolakušić wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
