After a year of nationalist approaches to Covid, securing world cooperation on disease control is unlikely to be easy
Boris Johnson, alongside 24 other world leaders, has announced a pandemic treaty, a legally binding mechanism to protect against future pandemics and their impact on economies and societies. While the content of the treaty is not yet agreed, the aim is to bring political commitment to health security compliance between governments, using the language of global collaboration, cooperation and solidarity for mitigating future pandemics.
This appears to be a much-needed tonic for multilateralism after a year of nationalist approaches to pandemic control. However, for meaningful pandemic preparedness we need to address the elephant in the room: why did governments not abide by international law and the norms for pandemic management that were already in place?
