covid-19 and the Governance of International Organizations (original) (raw)
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Blaming the World Health Organization (who) for its failures in the Ebola crisis was a common reaction of the media. However, exclusively denouncing the who for the spread of Ebola falls short as it does not recognize the structural deficits of those recent governance procedures financing global health that lead to a chronic underfunding of the who. Against this background, the article reflects perspectives of a democratic reform of global health funding. It concludes that only the who can provide a leadership on global health matters, but to do so it depends on states willing to rebuild the who’s capacities to act. To address the global health crisis properly, the revitalization of who’s constitutional mandate is critically necessary. The discussion is based on normative legal theory, which argues that processes of globalization have transformed international law into a global rule of law, placing specific duties on states and international institutions.
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This article deals with the challenges that global governance has been enduring in the 21 century and focuses on the role of the novel coronavirus pandemic over its institutions. The discussion begins with an overview of global governance, emphasizing the theoretic dichotomy in international relations literature over whether the liberal international order is dissipating or not. This will set the stage for the analysis of both national and international responses to the Covid 19 public health crisis. The article highlights how the interaction between national policies translate to the international behavior of states by linking the domestic-foreign policy divide from a qualitative perspective. As a case study, the article analyses the World Health Organization as a prime example of a global governance institution in the international system. For comparison purposes regarding the national aspect, this analysis takes the examples of the Unites States of America, China, Spain, Italy, G...
COVID-19 Pandemic, the World Health Organization, and Global Health Policy
Social Science Research Network, 2021
The emergence and quick spread of the COVID-19 pandemic has shifted the focus and dynamics of the debates about global health, international law, and policy. This shift has overshadowed many of the other controversies in the international sphere. It has also highlighted the tensions that often exist in international affairs—especially in understanding the place and purpose of international institutions, vis-à-vis states, in the general schema of public international law. Central to the international response to the current pandemic is the World Health Organization (WHO)—a treaty-based organization charged with the overarching mandate of ensuring “the highest possible level of health” for all people. Interestingly, the WHO has also become entangled in a foreign policy spat between China and the United States of America. This work explores the public international law aspects of the WHO and why we should focus on its primary policy mandate and avoid unduly heaving the institution into perennial strategic policy games of states. It argues against turning such an illustrious institution, charged with a peculiar mandate, into an arena of zero-sum competitions amongst states. The hope is that this paper will provide crucial insights and assist legal and policy experts in understanding the organization, insulating it from unnecessary strategic games of powerful states, and ensuring the continued and effective delivery of global health policy2 through the WHO.