IHR Amendments Discussions on Track As Countries Begin Text-Based Negotiations, Developing Countries Push for Level Playing Field for Their Proposals

Newsletter Edition #38 [Treaty Talks - IHR]

Hi,

Today we bring you an update from the week-long deliberations of the Working Group set up to amend the International Health Regulations. This follows our interview with the Co-Chairs of the working group.

We hope that you have found these series of updates over the last few weeks helpful. We try our best to keep pace with these two track negotiations that will now increasingly have several intersections in the coming weeks and months.

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We will be back with our reported editions in a few weeks. We take this August break during Geneva’s summer to step back from editorial and to recalibrate our strategy and operations.

Time out!

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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STORY OF THE WEEK

IHR Amendments Discussions on Track As Countries Begin Text-Based Negotiations, Developing Countries Push for Level Playing Field for Their Proposals

[Update from WG-IHR4]

By Priti Patnaik & Tessa Jager

WHO member states began text-based negotiations of certain amendment proposals in their discussions at the fourth meeting of the Working Group set up to make targeted amendments to the IHR. Even as they made progress on some proposals, diplomats in Geneva indicated the need for greater trust to move the process ahead.

Overall, the mood around the meeting was positive among a few delegations – both developed and developing countries – in the course of our reporting on the proceedings during this week. There is a palpable difference in the way diplomats shared their overall impressions of the discussions this week, compared to the INB discussions a week earlier.

A bulk of the proposals discussed this week included those on surveillance and preparedness – priorities for all countries but more so for developed countries. Some developing countries continued to push for a fair treatment of their suggested proposals on those related to equity.

The meeting was preceded by a joint session of the two bureaux of the WG-IHR and the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body. (See our update from earlier in the week: Decisive Discussions on Definition, Declaration of a Pandemic; Developed Countries’ Push to Park Access to Countermeasures in the INB?)

This story presents key issues and processes that featured in this week’s meeting and is based on conversations with numerous diplomatic sources in Geneva.

Image Credit: Photo by Kelly, Pexels