WHO’s Pandemic Agreement is Finally Within Reach as Brazil Proposes Compromise
Pandemic Agreement 13/04/2025 •
Jubilant and exhausted members of the INB pose after marathon pandemic agreement talks finally result in unity.

World Health Organization (WHO) member states are very close to agreeing on the entire pandemic agreement – and may even have been able to clinch a deal on Saturday had they not been exhausted after negotiating from Friday morning right through until  9am on Saturday morning, according to sources.

Anne-Claire Amprou, co-chair of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB), told Associated Press  that “we have an accord in principle” – and indeed they almost do.

By sunrise on Saturday morning, the entire draft pandemic agreement had been agreed on – bar the vexing question of whether technology transfer related to the production of pandemic products should always be voluntary, reported by Health Policy Watch.

Several negotiators also need to get new mandates from their principles before they regroup at the final formal talks on Tuesday where the text expected to be approved for presentation at the World Health Assemby (WHA) next month.

The one outstanding issue involves whether technology transfer for producing pandemic-related health products shall be both “voluntary” and on “mutually agreed terms”, according to a footnote in Article 11.

Thirty legal experts argue in a letter sent to negotiators earlier in the week that the use of “voluntary” will undermine countries’ “sovereign right … to implement legislation within their jurisdiction, and equity in pandemic preparedness and response”.

Several countries have laws allowing non-voluntary measures under exceptional circumstances, including the United States Defense Production Act, and Germany’s Act on the Protection of the Population in Case of an Epidemic Situation of National Significance, passed in 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The INB Bureau proposed on Wednesday that the footnote should read: “For the purposes of this Agreement, transfer of technology refers to an agreed process where technology is transferred on mutually agreed terms. This understanding is without prejudice to and does not affect the measures that Parties may take in accordance with their domestic or national laws and regulations, and compliant with their international obligations”.

Brazil has since proposed a compromise, which reads:  “For the purposes of this agreement, ‘as mutually agreed’ means willingly undertaken and on mutually agreed terms, without prejudice to the rights and obligations of the Parties under other international agreements.”

This compromise appears likely to have struck the right note with member states and it looks as if Tuesday will see text of the entire agreement “greened” to show total agreement – positive news for global pandemic prevention, preparedness and response after three long and tough years of negotiations.

Image Credits: Thiru Balasubramaniam.

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