Lessons learned?

The World Health Organization’s Pandemic Treaty and what it means for us

This blog is about the future, and how it depends on us

By 'us', I mean you, and me, and all other adults more or less in possession of their faculties.

It's also a piece of reluctant activism that I've been avoiding for a while. Like most of us, I've been increasingly keen to get back to the important things in this short life: people and places, creativity and nature. But if too many of us ignore this latest development, our ability to live our lives may be curtailed for the foreseeable future.

I'm talking about the pandemic treaty the World Health Organization is in the process of negotiating with most of the countries of the world. It's been difficult to get much information about what exactly the treaty might mean: little has been written about it and few people seem aware of it.

This month (May 22nd-28th), with representatives from governments all over the world descending on Geneva to discuss the treaty, there's growing concern. Much of it takes the form of high drama on social media predicting that by the end of the meeting, your government will have signed all your rights away in perpetuity. Not quite. A treaty, however rushed, takes time to negotiate and has to be ratified by the WHO’s member states, so there is time.