Taking a look at the recent Pandemic Treaty, Dr. Siddarth Jain explains how its provisions differ—both positively and negatively—from the 2001 Doha Declaration. Siddarth holds a PhD from the School of Social Sciences, Centre for Studies in Science Policy, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and is interested in IP, technology transfer, and innovation studies.
The WHO Pandemic Agreement: A Contested Step Beyond Doha
By Dr. Siddarth Jain
Following intense negotiations and the submission of a draft text, the World Health Assembly (WHA), in a resolution adopted on 20 May 2025, advanced the institutional framework for the WHO Pandemic Agreement. While the overarching treaty text itself was not fully adopted, the WHA’s resolution established a new body: the Intergovernmental Working Group (IGWG).
The primary mandate of the newly constituted IGWG is to undertake the rigorous task of drafting and negotiating the Annex on Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing (PABS). This Annex, envisioned under Article 12 of the WHO Pandemic Agreement, is central to addressing one of the most contentious areas of health governance – the equitable sharing of pathogens, their genetic sequence information, and the benefits derived from their study and exploitation. The IGWG is charged with submitting the finalised PABS Annex to the Seventy-ninth World Health Assembly (79th WHA) for its comprehensive consideration and potential adoption.
Once the WHA successfully adopts the PABS Annex, the entirety of the WHO Pandemic Agreement will then be opened for signature by Member States and made available for their consideration of ratification, a process that typically involves national legislative bodies. The Agreement’s entry into international legal force is stipulated upon the deposit of 60 instruments of ratification, signalling a critical threshold of commitment from the global community. This phased approach underscores the complexity on sensitive issues like PABS while maintaining momentum towards a unified framework for global pandemic preparedness and response.
The WHO Pandemic Agreement is the second international legal agreement negotiated under Article 19 of the WHO Constitution, the first being the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which was adopted in 2003 and entered into force in 2005.
The treaty attempts to establish pre-defined rules for pandemic preparedness rather than responding to post-crisis situations, distinguishing its very main scope from that of the Doha Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health (2001). However, the extent to which it genuinely builds upon Doha’s legacy remains a deeply contested issue, particularly when viewed from the perspective of the Global South.
The Doha Declaration (2001) as a Precedent for Public Health Prioritization
The Doha Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health, adopted in 2001, emerged as a landmark response to the global HIV/AIDS crisis, which exposed the severe limitations of strict intellectual property enforcement in public health emergencies. Doha’s core achievement was its explicit reaffirmation of World Trade Organization (WTO) members’ rights to utilize the flexibilities within the TRIPS Agreement, such as compulsory licensing and parallel importation, to protect public health and promote access to medicines. It established a crucial precedent, asserting that the TRIPS Agreement “can and should be interpreted and implemented in a manner supportive of WTO Members’ right to protect public health and, in particular, to promote access to medicines for all.” In essence, Doha Declaration served as a post-crisis mechanism to enable response by providing clarity on existing IP flexibilities.
The Pandemic Agreement: Visionary Vocabulary vs. Operational Gaps
The proponents of the Pandemic Agreement argue that it signifies a substantial conceptual advancement from Doha Declaration, primarily due to its proactive, forward-looking framework for pandemic preparedness (some of the key components of the Agreement have been discussed here). Indeed, the treaty’s framing explicitly acknowledges historical inequities and incorporates aspirational terms such as “equitable access,” “solidarity,” “pathogen benefit-sharing,” and “genomic sovereignty.” Its vision and vocabulary mark a commendable step in global health discourse, the agreement ventures into previously uncharted territory by acknowledging Genomic Sequence Data particularly related to pathogen and the role of knowledge infrastructures, concepts that were beyond the scope of TRIPS and Doha Declaration. It broadens the governance conversation from merely pharmaceutical end-products to encompass critical upstream elements like biological samples, genomic data, and manufacturing platforms.
However, a critical examination reveals significant gaps between this ambitious vision and the practical enforceability of the proposed framework, leading to questions about whether genuine progress has been made since Doha Declaration:
1) Legal Enforceability and Binding Commitments: Unlike the TRIPS Agreement, which is legally binding and enforced through the WTO’s dispute settlement mechanism, the current draft of the Pandemic Agreement lacks strong, mandatory enforcement mechanisms for access or benefit-sharing. This absence of robust, actionable commitments raises concerns about its ability to compel compliance when future crises demand immediate action.
2) Intellectual Property Provisions: The IP provisions within the treaty are characterized by vague and diplomatic language. Instead of creating new, binding IP waivers or flexibilities, they largely reaffirm existing TRIPS flexibilities. Critically, high-income countries have strongly resisted any mandatory commitments to share technology or waive IP rights in real-time during pandemics (see here). This stands in stark contrast to the demands from Global South negotiators, who argue that voluntary mechanisms proved insufficient during COVID-19 and that binding commitments are essential for genuine equity (see here).
3) The Intergovernmental Negotiating Body draft CTO in May 2024 introduces the term “Genomic Sequence Data (GSD)” but only in bracketed text, and clearly separates it from broader “digital sequences” (akin to DSI) — which are still placeholders. It makes no binding references to DSI, focusing instead on pathogen-specific access and benefit-sharing (PABS) (see here). DSI, which refers to the genetic information derived from genomic databases, can be crucial for developing diagnostics, vaccines, and therapeutics. Without binding obligations for equitable benefit-sharing from the use of DSI, Global South countries, which often share pathogen samples leading to the generation of this data, fear continued exploitation without commensurate benefits. Inclusion DSI governance connected with PABS mechanism represents an opportunity to establish a global knowledge commons rooted in equity.
4) Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing (PABS): While the treaty includes mechanisms for access and benefit-sharing (ABS) of pathogens and related information or PABS, these mechanisms are largely decoupled from binding commitments to deliver essential vaccines, diagnostics, or therapeutics during pandemics. This means that even if pathogen samples are shared, there are no guaranteed mechanisms to ensure that the resulting health products are made available to countries in need at affordable prices (see here).
A Retreat from Doha: The Global South and STS Critique
The current Pandemic Agreement aims to address inequities highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic through binding commitments on access, technology transfer, and benefit-sharing, as viewed by many Global South negotiators and civil society actors. However, from a Science and Technology Studies perspective, the Pandemic Treaty represents a re-framing of biopolitical control within genomic governance, moving from the Doha Declaration’s focus on “access to medicines” to the broader concept of “access to biology,” including pathogen samples, genetic sequences, and surveillance data. While the treaty may suggest a global knowledge commons, it does not fundamentally redistribute epistemic power structures or ensure infrastructural capacities in the Global South. Therefore, equity necessitates a structural mandate for tangible changes in global dynamics and resource allocation, rather than merely serving as a procedural ideal.
Conclusion: Navigating the Path Forward
The WHO Pandemic Agreement represents a critical moment for global health diplomacy, its vision and scope particularly concerning Pandemic Preparedness and an Intergovernmental Working Group (IGWG) to look into the PABS mechanism. A conceptual step forward, the current issues on binding commitments on intellectual property waivers, technology transfer, and tangible benefit-sharing should be considered. As negotiations extend into mid-2026, the global community faces a crucial test, the Pandemic Agreement will determine whether humanity genuinely learns the lessons from COVID-19 to build a more equitable and effective system for future health crises, or whether it ultimately entrenches existing power imbalances, thereby failing to move meaningfully beyond the aspirations set forth by the Doha Declaration over two decades ago. The path forward demands a concerted effort to translate the treaty’s visionary language into concrete, enforceable mechanisms that prioritise global public health over proprietary interests.