EXCLUSIVE: Countries Split Between Retaining Existing Scope on Surveillance Vs Widening Commitments On Equity in the Amendments to IHR [WG-IHR3 Update]

Newsletter Edition #24 [Treaty Talks - IHR]

Hi,

WHO member states have set themselves up to crunch both a new treaty and changes to complex, technical rules governing health emergencies [IHR(2005)] in a span of less than a year. The strains are beginning to show, but countries continue to put up a brave front on making the deadline for May 2024. That we could be inhabiting a different reality in a few months from now, cannot be ruled out if countries eventually decide to buy more time.

Today we bring you a wrap on the discussions to the amendments to the IHR that took place in Geneva this week, in addition to some exclusive analysis on some of the internal thinking on how these processes could evolve.

We hope you enjoy reading this longish analysis as much as I have enjoyed putting this together. Special thanks to my enthusiastic colleagues Nishant and Tessa for staying up late to help me with this.

A note for newer readers: do forgive us for using esoteric codes with alphabets and numbers such as “WG-IHR3”, but people in the community know this terrain and makes for easy reference.

Information gathering, analysis, writing and production, (and hanging around at WHO) are all labor intensive processes. Our workload has doubled to put it mildly.

If you believe that chronicling these negotiations are important for posterity, do consider becoming paying subscribers or consider donations.

We want readers, especially institutions, to support our reporting this year. Do get in touch with us, if you want to discuss ways in which you can support us including by opting for group subscriptions.

Until later!

Best,

Priti

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

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STORY OF THE WEEK

Countries Split Between Retaining Existing Scope on Surveillance Vs Widening Commitments On Equity in the Amendments to IHR

[A wrap from WG-IHR3]

By Priti Patnaik & Nishant Sirohi

Tessa Jager contributed to this story

Early indications from the discussions on the amendments to the IHR, suggest that developed countries are veering towards limiting the scope of the instrument to bolster surveillance measures, even as developing countries continue to push for a broadening of commitments under the rules to include the access to medical products, transfer of technology and finance, substantively expanding what the instrument currently stands for.

Despite these fundamental divergences, countries met this week to constructively engage in what was essentially a second reading of some of the proposed amendments. This concludes the first part of the discussions for the first quarter of this year. Both the INB and the IHR processes will resume after the World Health Assembly in May next month even as intersessional meetings will continue.

A potential joint meeting slated for June could be decisive for both the processes (see more on this below). While the INB meets for a drafting group meeting in June, followed by a subsequent meeting in July, the next WG-IHR meeting will be in July. Intersessional meeting to progress on the drafting is not ruled out given the tight frame of concluding these discussions by May 2024, according to sources familiar with the discussions.

This story tries to document the process, the provisions and the politics in these discussions. As before, we were onsite talking to a range of negotiators on the side lines of the meeting to get a picture on the direction of these deliberations.