Independent Monitoring Mechanism for the Pandemic Accord: Accountability for a safer world

To address the challenges in pandemic preparedness and response (PPR), the World Health Assembly (WHA), at a special session in November 2021, established an Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (the INB) and tasked it with drafting a new legal instrument for PPR. During its second meeting in July 2022, the INB decided to develop the accord under Article 19 of the WHO Constitution, which grants the WHO the authority to negotiate a legally-binding Convention or Agreement and requires ratification by countries according to their local laws to enter into force. The aim is to complete negotiations and adopt a new pandemic instrument at the WHA in May 2024. The new legally binding agreement aims to address many of the failures exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the adoption of such an agreement is not the end of the process but the beginning. The negotiations on the instrument must establish a mechanism to monitor countries' compliance with the accord, particularly on the legally-binding elements. In this paper, we recommend creating such a mechanism as part of the accord: an independent committee of experts that monitors state parties' compliance with the pandemic accord and the timeliness, completeness, and robustness of states’ reports on their obligations. Its primary purpose would be to verify state self-reports by triangulating them with a range of publicly available information, making direct inquiries, and accepting confidential submissions. It would report its findings to a body consisting of or that is directly accountable to heads of state, with a particular focus on elevating instances of non-compliance or inadequate reporting. Its reports would also be available to the public. The proposed design builds on the analysis of strengths and weaknesses of existing monitoring approaches to 11 international treaties and mechanisms within and outside of health, a review of the literature, and interviews and input from more than 40 experts from around the world.