Emerging Fault Lines Suggest Tough Negotiations Ahead, As Countries Reveal Interests: WHO Pandemic Accord

Newsletter Edition #13 [Treaty Talks]

Hi,

Today we bring you a wrap on the Pandemic Accord discussions at the third meeting of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body at WHO. There is much to process and unpack, but there are already some clear signs. Predictably, intellectual property, access to information and benefits-sharing, One Health, among other issues, have emerged as flash points.

In the coming months, expect to be amused, baffled, get inspired, become impatient or even angry, depending on where you stand, as 194 member states of WHO pick apart messages and motivations during one of the key negotiations of our times.

This week’s meeting of the INB was webcast. Such transparency contributes to the education of the general public on international rule-making processes. But going forward, much of these discussions will be away from public glare.

We hope authorities will speak to the media, and shed more light into these sacrosanct diplomatic spaces. Our request to negotiators is to share your insights with us as these negotiations take shape and evolve. It helps make for a richer journey, for posterity’s sake.

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.

This will be one of our last reported editions for 2022. We will continue to keep you informed on key policy developments in Geneva. We hope to be back with our reporting and analyses in early January 2023.

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. ANALYSIS

Emerging Fault Lines Suggest Tough Negotiations Ahead, As Countries Reveal Interests: WHO Pandemic Accord

[THIRD MEETING OF THE INTERGOVERNMENTAL NEGOTIATING BODY]

Health diplomats from WHO member states this week, spoke in plain terms about their countries’ aims and ambitions towards a new Pandemic Accord. Intentions became clearer beneath the catch-all phrases of equity and sovereignty in these sensitive discussions.

At the third meeting of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB), countries discussed the provisions, chapter by chapter, as laid out in the Conceptual Zero Draft that was released last month.

This story analyses some emerging fault lines among countries as diplomats get into the real business of negotiating the Pandemic Accord. The proceedings of the meeting were webcast in their entirety, a rare event in the sequestered settings of global health discussions in Geneva. As before, we look at some of the substantive issues and also discuss procedural concerns that countries highlighted during the three-day meeting.

The INB has decided that the zero draft will be made available to countries by early 2023 ahead of the fourth meeting of the INB. For most countries, the zero draft is critical since it will provide a basis to begin the negotiations that are expected to conclude by May 2024, for an instrument to be adopted by the World Health Assembly. There are concerns that it will get increasingly difficult to get language in, once a zero draft is crystallized.

Photo by Nick Collins: Pexels