Virtual Roundtable: The Pandemic Agreement and IHR Amendments After the World Health Assembly

In response to COVID-19, member states of the World Health Organization (WHO) have been negotiating to create a pandemic agreement and to amend the existing International Health Regulations (IHR). The negotiations have been closely watched as indicators of global health diplomacy’s future in an increasingly divided world. On June 1, the WHO’s World Health Assembly approved amendments to the IHR and extended negotiations on a pandemic agreement. Dr. Suerie Moon, codirector of the Global Health Centre at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva; David Fidler, senior fellow for global health and cybersecurity at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR); and Thomas J. Bollyky, Bloomberg Chair in Global Health at CFR, discuss what the World Health Assembly’s decisions on the IHR amendments and the pandemic agreement negotiations mean for global health security, equity, and governance.