Human Rights Watch (HRW) has identified the World Health Organization’s (WHO) new pandemic treaty as a significant but imperfect step toward improving global health crisis preparedness. HRW expressed reservations regarding the treaty’s implementation mechanisms and its potential to address and mitigate inequalities among countries. This evaluation emphasizes the challenges of ensuring equitable health responses in future global pandemics.
As per HRW, the treaty offers a crucial opportunity for nations to collaborate during pandemic crises, seeking to avoid past mistakes, such as those witnessed during the COVID-19 pandemic. The treaty outlines commitments that target enhancing both domestic and international policy frameworks to tackle interconnected global health issues. For instance, Article 4 of the treaty specifies the need for parties to strengthen measures that prevent future pandemics and diseases, improve immunization programs, and prevent infections that transmit between humans and animals. You can read more about these stipulations in the official document here.
The treaty introduces the Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing (PABS) system, a multilateral mechanism for sharing biological materials of potential pandemic pathogens. Nonetheless, the treaty leaves several questions, such as the classification of pathogens and legal terms of data sharing, unaddressed, deferring them to a future annex as noted in a related analysis.
One of the treaty’s significant issues is its reliance on voluntary enforcement. According to HRW’s Matt McConnell, the success of the treaty hinges on governments fulfilling their commitments, highlighting the inherent challenges of enforcing international law on a domestic level.
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, wealthier governments have been criticized for prioritizing private profit over public health, which allegedly resulted in barriers to the global diversification of COVID-19 vaccine production. This criticism points to a gap in government regulations that allowed pharmaceutical companies to withhold vital technologies from less affluent countries, as discussed in a Nature article.
While HRW acknowledges the treaty as a step forward, the organization calls for its implementation to be rooted in human rights, ensuring that global health inequalities are specifically addressed. More details on HRW’s perspective can be found in their statement.