How The WHO Is Using A COVID-19 Pandemic Treaty To Create A New ‘Global Health Security Architecture’

In December 2021, at the World Health Assembly (WHA), the World Health Organization (WHO) announced their intention to initiate a draft of a new pandemic treaty “to strengthen pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response.” The goal of this draft was to lessen the likelihood of the world suffering through another years-long pandemic with devastating global health, social, and financial impact.

Then, in May 2022, the 75th WHA meeting was met with deep reservations about the rumored scope of the pandemic treaty, including concerns that nations would be forced to surrender their sovereign rights to govern to the WHO. Some speculated whether the WHA could establish global vaccine passports and have the power to unilaterally impose national lockdowns and/or restrictions on international travel. And when Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the WHO should be “at the center of global health security architecture,” he further fueled critics of the proposal.