The Covid-19 pandemic manifested the urgent need to strengthen international health law. Historically, health governance has largely been considered a national matter, regulated primarily through municipal laws. Although the World Health Organization (WHO) is one of the oldest international institutions within international law, the over-reliance on national legal frameworks has hindered the development of a comprehensive international treaty on health law.

At present, international health governance relies primarily on soft international law, i.e., non-binding instruments such as guidelines, recommendations, and best practices for member states. However, the Covid-19 pandemic exposed gaps in global preparedness and response mechanisms, necessitating the need for a binding international treaty to coordinate pandemic prevention, preparedness, and equitable response across nations.

The International Health Regulations (IHR) 2005, though adopted by 196 countries, proved insufficient to manage a crisis of this scale. The IHR 2005 replaced the older IHR 1969, which had focused mainly on........

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