1 This is a draft paper (2 May 2022) that will be published in the German Yearbook of International Law (Volume 64, 2021, https://www.wsi.uni-kiel.de/en/german-yearbook-of-international-law-gyil), published by Duncker & Humblot (https://www.duncker-humblot.de/zeitschrift/german-yearbook-of- international-law-gyil-22/) Do we need to protect the entire world population from health threats through one global biomedical surveillance and response system? - A human rights-based comment on the proposed WHO treaty on pandemic preparedness and response Silvia Behrendt and Amrei Müller Overview: 1. Introduction 2. The proposals to rapidly negotiate and adopt a treaty on pandemic preparedness and response 2.1 The process so far 2.2 The process ahead 2.3 Reasons given for the need of a new pandemic treaty and thematic proposals for inclusion 3. Problematic aspects: Entrenchment of the Global Health Security (GHS) doctrine and its implications 3.1 The GHS doctrine and its presence in the current international legal framework on pandemic preparedness and response 3.2 Entrenching GHS-informed approaches in a new pandemic treaty that proved ineffective and undermined the WHOC, IHR and IHRL during the Covid-19 pandemic a) Lockdowns b) Biomedical surveillance c) Fast-track development, global distribution and administration of investigational vaccines 4. Concluding remarks 1. Introduction ‘The world is ill-prepared to respond to a severe influenza pandemic or to any similarly global, sustained and threatening public-health emergency’ was an important conclusion of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Review Committee on the Functioning of the International Health Regulations (IHR) in 2009, 1 repeated in the 2016 IHR Review on the West African Ebola outbreaks in 2014-2016 and pronounced again in the closing statement of the IHR Review Committee’s report on Covid-19 in 2021. 2 Since then, WHO reiterates 3 the ‘ill- prepared rationale’, in concert with the European Council and Commission, 4 the WHO’s public 1 WHO, Report of the Review Committee on the Functioning of the International Health Regulations (2005) in relation to Pandemic (H1N1) 2009, A/64/10, pp.12, 20, 128, 136. 2 WHO, Report of the Review Committee on the Functioning of the International Health Regulations (2005) during the COVID- 19 Response, A74/9 Add.1, p.63. 3 In particular by the Director-General’s statements, e.g. WHO, WHO Director-General’s panel remarks at the Group of Friends of Global Health, 25 April 2022; WHO, WHO Director-General’s opening remarks at the Public Hearing regarding a new international instrument on pandemic preparedness and response, 12 April 2022. 4 See infra notes 16 and 17.