Description

COVID-19 exposed major gaps in global pandemic preparedness, prevention and response (PPR) and prompted profound debates on how to reform the global legal landscape to better respond to the next pandemic. As a result, two concurrent lawmaking processes are currently underway under the auspices of the World Health Organization (WHO). They could lead to the adoption of a new pandemic legal instrument and to amendments to the 2005 International Health Regulations (IHR), the existing WHO instrument governing the cross-border spread of infectious diseases.

This unprecedented parallel unfolding of two negotiating processes raises many questions. What are the political implications for negotiators? How will power dynamics affect the processes? Will it be possible to ensure complementarity between instruments?  What are the possible outcomes on issues such as One Health and Pathogen- and Benefit-Sharing? Ultimately, is avoiding a collision course between these complex negotiations possible?

Join us to hear our expert speakers’ opinions on the legal and political implications of pursuing parallel international law-making processes in the same fora and to discuss possible outcomes going beyond the confines of the two instruments.

Speakers

• Daniel Warner | Political Scientist, former Deputy to the Director, Graduate Institute Geneva, Assistant Director for International Affairs at the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF)
• Pedro Villarreal | Senior Research Fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs and at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law
• Hélène de Pooter | Senior Lecturer in Law, University of Franche-Comté
• Elisa Morgera | Professor of Global Environmental Law at Strathclyde University Law School (Glasgow, UK) and Director of the One Ocean Hub

Moderated by Gian Luca Burci, Adjunct Professor of International Law, Geneva Graduate Institute.

Access speakers' biographies

Organisers