LAUSR

An evidence-based treaty must balance prevention, preparedness, response, and repair World Health Organization (WHO) member states have tasked an Intergovernmental Negotiating Body with developing an initial draft of a “pandemic treaty” by August 2022, with the goal of adoption of an agreement by May 2024. There are multiple proposals for the specific aims that such an international legal instrument for pandemic preparedness and response should incorporate. One unsatisfying solution would be to relegate the pandemic treaty solely to matters of human health as much as possible. International law, including the International Health Regulations (IHR), has typically operated in these types of fragmented, thematic silos. This untenable approach ignores key lessons from the past 2 years, and well before. A better option is a treaty that (pro)actively brings cohesion to international law and the haphazard governance that left the world vulnerable to both the risks and impacts of COVID-19.