The pandemic treaty proposal: a new dress-up of the same globalization. The notion and vision of the treaty stem clearly as a European initiative aimed to recover geopolitical clout, after the plight of the pandemic throughout 2020.

As an independent platform of civil society organizations committed to advancing the right to health, the Geneva Global Health Hub (G2H2) intends to build on the COVID-19 experience and on the information so far collected on the pandemic treaty. G2H2 aims to develop evidence-based advocacy for putting the cause of “health for all”, based on well-resourced universal public health systems and responsible multilateralism, at the heart of the discourse and processes leading to the envisaged pandemic treaty – or alternative routes that need to be explored.
G2H2 feels it necessary to open the pandemic treaty proposal to a broader mapping that cannot be limited to the WHO alone, and to the health sector alone, for that matter. G2H2 intends to try and map the complexity through a bottom-up qualitative research activity. It will explore the possibility of an alternative governance for the right to health, based on the original principles of cooperation and solidarity. Through this research and the planned interviews, the idea is to usher the debate on the pandemic treaty to other diplomatic fora, in connection to other relevant treaty-making processes in Geneva. We are referring to the ongoing negotiations on the Binding Treaty for Transnational Corporations and Human Rights and to the more recent diplomatic route on the Treaty for the Right to Development . Both of them are supported at the Office of the High Commission for Human Rights (OHCHR).
G2H2 has identified the following research questions:
Q1. Is a new international pandemic treaty required to overcome legal constraints and public health needs for emergency preparedness and response?
Q2. What are the (geo)political factors that are behind the call for a pandemic treaty and who are the actors driving this agenda?
Q3. What alternative/other/additional international categories and arrangements would be/ are needed to prevent health emergencies and effectively govern the international pandemic preparedness and response efforts?