The Pandemic Agreement Talks Without the U.S., A Gamechanger?

Newsletter Edition #119 [Treaty Talks]

Hi,

Time acquires a curious nature during multilateral negotiations, and appears to bend.

For those “inside the room”, time seems to stall, excruciatingly slow as they wade through method and meaning. For the rest, outside the discussions, there is a sense of time slipping quickly, although there is always a sense of an eternal wait for a breakthrough.

We bring you our first update on the Pandemic Treaty Talks underway in Geneva this week. More to come in the coming days.

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Until later!

Priti

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Illustration Credit: Amy Clarke, Chembe Collaborative

I. INB13 UPDATE

The Pandemic Agreement Talks Without the U.S., A Gamechanger?

Priti Patnaik & Nishant Sirohi

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The double whammy of worsening geopolitics and an uncertain financial climate for global health, is shaping the negotiations for a new Pandemic Agreement in a slow but sure way.

WHO member states are convening this week for the 13^th meeting of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) in bid to tackle the toughest sticking points that have distilled through three years of this negotiating process including framing obligations on prevention, technology transfer, pathogen access and benefits sharing, among others.

The turn of the year has proved to be more transformative of the negotiating landscape that many would have anticipated, or liked.

The INB process initiated in 2021 to establish a new instrument to govern pandemics, is no stranger to shifting geopolitics, but an already complex, multi-faceted negotiation, just got more challenging in the backdrop of a decisive and swift disruption in American politics.

The dynamics of the U.S. withdrawal from WHO, and from the negotiations, are already have an impact on these discussions, although American participation in the treaty has long been discounted by many countries. Nevertheless, dealing with this new reality has materially altered the possibilities in these negotiations.

The implications of the American retreat is not only about one member state of the WHO, or overstating its role, but it has also got to do with the extent of its integration on multiple levels, from financing, to its technical expertise and its overall influence across the global health architecture.

Now at the cusp of new rules on governing health emergencies, countries are still measuring the impact of not having the U.S. in the room.

With a handful of negotiating days currently scheduled ahead of the May 2025 deadline, many countries appear keen to wrap up these discussions, if only to be able to get to putting out urgent fires on account of the financing crunch and information scarcity left in the wake of President Donald Trump’s reset of the international aid and geopolitics in general.

In this story, we have a brief review on what is being considered this week at the negotiations, and also share statements made by stakeholders.

Image Credit: Photo by Brett Sayles, Pexels