The World Health Organisation convention, agreement or other international instrument on pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response (“WHO CA+”) zero draft is out. This draft is for the consideration of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body at its fourth meeting.
In recognition of the catastrophic failure of the international community in showing solidarity and equity in response to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, the World Health Assembly convened a second special session in December 2021, where it established an Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) open to all Member States and Associate Members (and regional economic integration organizations as appropriate) to draft and negotiate a WHO convention, agreement or other international instrument on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response, with a view to its adoption under Article 19, or under other provisions of the WHO Constitution as may be deemed appropriate by the INB.
In furtherance of the above mandate, the INB established a process and systematic approach for its work and agreed, at its second meeting, that the instrument should be legally binding and contain both legally binding as well as non-legally binding elements. In that regard, the INB identified Article 19 of the WHO Constitution as the comprehensive provision under which the instrument should be adopted, without prejudice to also considering, as work progressed, the suitability of Article 21, and requested the Bureau to develop and present to the INB a conceptual zero draft of the instrument (referred to herein as the “WHO CA+”) for discussion.
At its third meeting, the INB agreed that the Bureau, with support from the WHO Secretariat, would prepare the zero draft of the WHO CA+, based on the conceptual zero draft and input received during the third meeting of the INB, with legal provisions. The INB further agreed that the zero draft would be considered at its fourth meeting as a basis for commencing negotiations at that meeting, it is understood that the zero draft will be without prejudice to the position of any delegation and following the principle that “nothing is agreed until everything is agreed”.
Accordingly, the Bureau has prepared the zero draft of the WHO CA+ for consideration by the INB at its fourth meeting.
Access the ZERO DRAFT in English below!