In November 2021, the World Health Organization (WHO) launched the negotiation of a convention, agreement, or other international instrument on the response to pandemics. In this essay we defend and justify the position that this new pact should be a human rights treaty, as an indispensable condition for the prevention of new pandemics and for efficiency of the global response when they occur. After briefly reviewing the origin of the negotiations, we present the principal normative contents that reflect a human rights approach: the establishment of the rule of inseparability between quarantine and social protection measures; regulation of access to pharmaceutical technologies. Next, in a section dedicated to the future treaty’s effectiveness, we classify the existing proposals as technocratic adjustments, such as alterations in the procedure for declaring emergencies; mechanisms of transparency and control such as the adoption of a mechanism of Universal Periodic Review (UPR), similar to that of the UN Human Rights Council, to monitor States’ health-related obligations; coercive powers to be granted to the WHO or another agency such as inspections in national territories by independent scientists; and mechanisms of political coordination such as the creation of a Global Health Threats Council. We conclude that there is a risk of adoption of a more efficient surveillance system to alert the developed world of threats coming from developing countries rather than a treaty capable of contributing to preventing more vulnerable populations from continuing to be devastated by increasingly frequent pandemics.
Keywords:
Pandemics; World Health Organization; Human Rights; Global Health; International Law