Where there is a will, there is a way—but the solution is in your hands
In Geneva, the World Health Organization's annual assembly convened under the shadow of a collapsed pandemic treaty — two and a half years of negotiation undone by the oldest fracture in global affairs: the divide between those who have and those who do not. Rather than mourn what could not be agreed upon, delegates turned to amending existing health regulations, seeking in incremental reform what transformative consensus could not deliver. The question before them is not merely procedural; it is a test of whether humanity, having lived through COVID-19, has grown wise enough to prepare together for what comes next.
- A binding pandemic treaty — meant to unify how the world detects, shares, and fights deadly pathogens — collapsed on Friday after 2.5 years of negotiations, leaving global health governance without its most ambitious reform in decades.
- The fault lines are stark: wealthy nations want priority access to vaccines for their own populations, while developing countries demand guarantees of equity, technology transfer, and a seat at the table when the next crisis arrives.
- WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus urged delegates not to surrender to disappointment, pivoting the assembly toward amending the existing 2005 International Health Regulations as a more achievable path forward.
- Proposed amendments would strengthen early warning systems, expand disease detection capacity, and grant the WHO director-general new authority to formally declare a pandemic emergency — powers the organization currently lacks.
- Experts warn that fading public memory of COVID-19, combined with competing global crises, is rapidly narrowing the window for meaningful action — and that failure here would be, in the words of one adviser, 'a huge missed opportunity.'
The World Health Organization's annual assembly opened Monday with an uncomfortable inheritance: a pandemic treaty that had just collapsed after two and a half years of negotiation. The agreement was meant to create a unified global framework — for sharing pathogen data, distributing vaccines, and coordinating responses across borders. Instead, it foundered on questions that have long divided rich and developing nations: who gets vaccines first, who owns data about new pathogens, and who pays to prepare for threats that may never arrive on their own shores.
Rather than attempt a fresh start, delegates turned to a narrower goal — amending the International Health Regulations, a set of rules most countries already recognize from 2004. The proposed changes would sharpen early warning systems, improve outbreak detection, and introduce a new power for the WHO director-general to formally declare a pandemic emergency. It is a more modest ambition, but one that might actually cross the finish line.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus acknowledged the disappointment without lingering on it, calling the original timeline 'very ambitious' and expressing confidence that consensus would eventually come. But the underlying tensions have not dissolved. Proposals for a fund to help developing nations build pandemic capacity remain contested. Technology transfer — helping poorer countries manufacture their own vaccines rather than depend on imports — is still unresolved. These are not footnotes; they are the architecture of whether global health protection is universal or conditional.
Experts warn that COVID-19 is fading from political memory while other crises crowd the agenda. The assembly's outcome will reveal whether the world absorbed the hard lessons of the last pandemic — or whether the same inequalities that shaped that response are simply being preserved for the next one.
The World Health Organization's annual assembly opened on Monday with a familiar tension hanging over the proceedings: the world needs to prepare for the next pandemic, but the world cannot seem to agree on how. Just days earlier, an ambitious effort to forge a binding pandemic treaty had collapsed after two and a half years of negotiation, leaving health officials to salvage what they could from the wreckage.
The treaty was meant to be transformative. It would have created a unified framework for how countries respond when a deadly pathogen emerges—how they share information about it, how they distribute the tools to fight it, how they coordinate across borders. But the negotiations foundered on questions that have haunted global health for decades: Who gets access to vaccines when supplies run short? Who owns the data about new pathogens? Who bears the cost of preparing for threats that may never materialize in their own territory? Rich nations and developing ones could not bridge the gap, and the treaty was shelved on Friday.
Now the assembly faces a narrower but still consequential task. Rather than start fresh with an entirely new treaty, delegates are focusing on amendments to the International Health Regulations, a set of rules adopted in 2004 that most countries already recognize. The proposed changes would strengthen early warning systems, improve disease detection capacity, and require nations to cooperate more closely when outbreaks emerge. One significant addition would grant the WHO director-general the authority to declare a pandemic emergency—a power the organization does not currently possess.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO's director-general, opened the assembly by acknowledging the disappointment without dwelling on it. He called the timeline "very ambitious" and noted that international treaties typically take years to negotiate, not months. "Of course, we all wish that we had been able to reach a consensus on the agreement in time," he said, before pivoting to what comes next. "But I remain confident that you still will—because where there is a will, there is a way."
The underlying problem remains unchanged, however. Pathogens do not respect borders, which means no country can protect itself alone. A virus that emerges in one region can circle the globe in weeks. Yet the incentives pulling countries apart are real and immediate. Wealthy nations want to ensure their populations get vaccines first. Developing countries want guarantees that they will not be left behind. Some nations view their pathogen data as proprietary information. Others see technology transfer—the sharing of manufacturing know-how and diagnostic tools—as a matter of equity and survival.
Experts watching the assembly warn that the stakes are high. Yuanqiong Hu, a senior legal and policy adviser at Doctors Without Borders, said that if the assembly produces nothing concrete, it would represent "a huge missed opportunity." The window for action is closing as COVID-19 fades from public consciousness and other crises—elections, climate change, armed conflict—compete for political attention. Health officials are racing against the clock and against collective amnesia.
Delegates say a deal on the amended regulations is close, but the same fundamental disagreements that derailed the treaty still linger. Proposals for a new fund to help developing countries build pandemic-fighting capacity, scheduled to launch in 2030, remain contested. The question of how to transfer technology—how to help poorer nations manufacture their own vaccines and diagnostics rather than depend on imports—remains unresolved. These are not technical details. They are the difference between a global health system that works for everyone and one that works only for those with resources.
The assembly will spend the coming days trying to find language that all countries can accept. The outcome will signal whether the world learned anything from COVID-19, or whether the same patterns of inequality and self-interest that defined the pandemic response will simply repeat themselves the next time a pathogen emerges.
Notable Quotes
If nothing comes out of the assembly, it's a huge missed opportunity. If they don't come up with a clear road map, how are they going to finish this process?— Yuanqiong Hu, senior legal and policy adviser at Doctors Without Borders
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why did the pandemic treaty fail when everyone agrees another pandemic is coming?
Because agreeing in principle and agreeing on specifics are different things. Everyone wants to be prepared. But prepared how? At whose expense? Who gets the vaccine first if there's not enough? Those questions don't have easy answers.
So they're starting over with something older?
Not starting over—pivoting. The 2004 regulations already exist and most countries follow them. They're just trying to strengthen them, make them more binding. It's less ambitious but more achievable.
What's the real barrier here?
Trust and equity. Rich countries worry about their own populations. Developing countries worry they'll be left behind again, like they were in 2020. And there's money involved—who pays for all this preparation? That's always where negotiations break down.
Can they actually get this done at the assembly?
Maybe. Officials say a deal is close. But the same fights that killed the treaty are still there. They're just hoping smaller, incremental changes feel less threatening to everyone.
What happens if they don't?
Then the next pandemic will probably look a lot like the last one—chaotic, unequal, and slower to respond than it should be. And people will wonder why we didn't learn.