Difficult Negotiations, But Countries Win More Time to Suggest Language to the Zero Draft, Fight Back Efforts to Slow Process [INB5 WRAP]

Newsletter Edition #22 [Treaty Talks]

Hi,

Today we have got you some reading for the Easter break, a wrap from the latest meeting of the intergovernmental negotiating body set up to establish a Pandemic Accord.

We bring you an edition that looks at the churn and the action behind the scenes. As always the process reveals the politics. No misstep can be too small as countries begin to take uneasy steps in these negotiations.

(This follows from our story earlier in the week Price Caps, Tiered Pricing, Stockpiling, in the EU's Textual Proposals for Pandemic Accord. Its Imprint on the WHO Medical Countermeasures Platform)

May I also take the opportunity to apologize to negotiators for interrupting their lunch break during these meetings. Thank you for speaking with us and helping us understand what is at stake.

Like our work? Consider supporting our journalism that ensures nuance, detail, and accuracy. Readers paying for our work helps us meet our costs. Thank you for reading.

We may not have an edition next week owing to the school Easter break here in Switzerland.

Until later.

Best,

Priti

Feel free to write to us: patnaik.reporting@gmail.com or genevahealthfiles@protonmail.com; Follow us on Twitter: @filesgeneva

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I. STORY OF THE WEEK

Difficult Negotiations, But Countries Win More Time to Suggest Language to the Zero Draft, Fight Back Efforts to Slow Process [INB5 WRAP]

By Priti Patnaik

Shoa Moosavi and Tessa Jager contributed to this story

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“Difficult”, said one negotiator from a developed country, exhaling a long breath, over lunch at WHO in Geneva this week, when asked how the discussions were going at the Fifth Intergovernmental Negotiating Body Meeting.

Despite an arduous road ahead, member states at WHO made progress this week at the meeting when they concluded a first reading of the zero draft of the instrument and agreed on the way forward not without overcoming strong disagreements, diplomatic sources told us. Countries extended the deadline for countries to submit their textual proposals on the zero draft to April 22. The INB bureau will compile all submissions and present its report to member states by May 22, along with a progress report to the World Health Assembly next month.  

It is not clear yet whether, the INB will be able to present a first draft for consideration for the drafting group meeting in June [12^th – 16^th] as initially proposed.

At this point there appears to be willingness and engagement among most countries to stick to the timeline of having an instrument ready for adoption by May 2024. But WHO DG Tedros, also acknowledged, that the timeline is tight in his remarks to the INB earlier this week, even as he pushed for the negotiations to be concluded in the agreed time frame,  during his weekly press briefing yesterday. (See more below.)

In this story we focus on the politics and the procedure of these discussions. These insights are based on numerous conversations with a range of negotiators from both developing and developed countries on how they see these processes evolve. Most of the discussions on the positions of countries on the substantive provisions, remain behind closed doors and mostly inaccessible to wider stakeholders.  

Image credit: Photo by Pixabay