Global Health Negotiations Kick Off In Geneva - Amendments to the IHR

Newsletter Edition #16 [Treaty Talks - IHR]

Hi,

The year 2023 will be significant for scores of diplomats in Geneva who are beavering away at marathon negotiations in global health, that have just begun. It will also be a testing period for their physical and mental capacities given the sheer amount of work ahead of them, as many expressed this week.

My colleague Nishant Sirohi and I, bring you today’s edition on the meeting of the Working Group on IHR amendments. Preliminary discussions show the realities of divvying up issues across the IHR-INB axis around which no doubt many trade-offs will be brokered in the coming weeks and months.

Next week, we will also follow the fourth meeting of the INB on the Pandemic Accord negotiations. Many discussions from this week will bleed into next week’s.

To wrap your head around how complex this is going to be for diplomats (and the WHO secretariat), see this cautionary note from one of them who said, they might find it difficult remember which track they are on.

And yet, member states collectively decided this path for themselves.

The WG-IHR meeting continued as this story went to print. We will update this edition if required subsequently.

Like others, we are tracking these discussions to the extent that we can gather information and insights in order to chronicle these sensitive negotiations.

We want subscribers, 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.

Consider supporting our journalism that ensures nuance, detail, and accuracy. Readers paying for our work helps us meet our costs. We are in this for the long haul. Become a paid subscriber if you value our work.

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

Global Health Negotiations Kick Off In Geneva - Amendments to the IHR

By Priti Patnaik & Nishant S Sirohi

This week WHO member states who are State Parties to the International Health Regulations (2005), began to sift through 300 proposed amendments to the rules, even as some of them spelt out non-negotiable positions, including on matters of financing, the access to information, the sharing of benefits resulting from providing information. To be sure while these are early days in the discussions, these differences are indicative of flash points in the coming weeks.

These negotiations began in earnest in Geneva, amid calls from diplomats across the board to take into account the physical, mental and overall well-being, given the vast scope of work ahead of them in the coming months. Delegations big and small are coming to terms with the extent of capacities needed to engage meaningfully in both the forums on IHR and on making new rules for a Pandemic Accord. Both these sets of negotiations, each lasting 4-5 days will run consecutively through this year, every couple of weeks till August 2023 and then resume in the fall before closing for the year in December. The WG-IHR is expected to have four meetings this year.

At the second meeting on the Working Group set up to amend the IHR, that is taking place in Geneva this week [February 20-24], countries adopted proposed modalities for the negotiations, discussed timelines, provided feedback to the experts’ review committee report on IHR, and engaged in substantive discussion on the proposed amendments.

Parts of the meeting were publicly webcast where countries made high-level statements explaining their rationale behind their proposals to make changes in the IHR. These statements revealed predictable positions along the North-South divide including on principles such as Common but Differentiated Responsibilities, on governance and compliance approaches among others.

As we reported last week, countries disagreed on whether to follow the current format of the IHR, or to broaden the scope by including new articles and provisions. (See Choice Facing Countries: Expand Scope Or Preserve Core Functions? [Amendments to the International Health Regulations])

This story is a brief snapshot on some of the statements made by countries during publicly webcast sessions.

Image Credit: Nick Collins, Pexels