The Case for Less-Stringent Global Health Treaties: Lessons from Multiple Regimes

Abstract

Global health has grabbed significant attention in the international legal community since COVID-19 hit the world. The formulation of a pandemic treaty ignited discourse on how the regime’s treaties should be designed; whether they should adhere strictly to stringent measures or adopt more lenient approaches. This paper argues on behalf of the latter. In doing so, this research first explains the objectives and characteristics of global health treaties as a primary composer of global health governance. Then, two sides of the debate on flexibility, namely idealism of full commitment by all and pragmatism of willingness to participate and enforce, are compared in depth. With the facts attained, a contextual analysis of the diplomatic dynamics at the World Health Organization (WHO) is performed to understand the constrains of treaty-making at the main international global platform for public health. Lastly, the research proposes four main ideas that make up the ideal party; cognizance of pre-existing realities, allowance for differentiated commitment levels, careful linguistic choices, and inclusion of minimal yet effective enforcement mechanism.