The proposal of an international convention on response to pandemics: in defense of a human rights treaty for the field of global health

Abstract

In November 2021, the World Health Organization (WHO) will start a negotiation of a convention, agreement, or other international instrument on response to pandemics. In this essay, we state and justify the thesis that the new pact shall be a human rights treaty as an imperative condition for the prevention of new pandemics and an efficient global response when they occur. After a brief description of the origin of the negotiations, we present thefollowing normative topics that correspond to a human rights perspective: the establishment of a rule of indissociability between quarantine measures and social protection; and the regulation of the access to pharmaceutical technologies. After that, in a section dedicated to the topics of the effectiveness of the future treaty, we classify the existing proposals in technocratic agreements, such as alterations in the procedures for the declaration of emergencies; mechanisms of transparency and accountability, such as the adoption of an Universal Periodic Reviews (UPR), similar to those of the United Nations Human Rights Council, to monitor the health-related obligations of States; coercive powers that would be disposed to WHO or to another agency such as inspections in the national territories to be held independent scientists; and mechanisms of political coordination, such as the creation of a Global Council on Threats to Health. We conclude that there is a risk of adopting a more efficient system to alert the developing world about threats originating from developing countries, in place of a treaty capable of contributing to avoid that more vulnerable populations continue to be devastated by even more frequent pandemics.