Pandemic Rules Cannot Vaccinate Against Global Hypocrisy -By Fransiscus Nanga Roka

A deadline is not a proclamation of universal compliance. A few tidbits of alternate reality: the WHO’s amended International Health Regulations, which became universally binding without exception on 19 September 2026. That fiction must be given up to defend global health cooperation.

Amendments to the International Health Regulations were adopted by WHO member states on 1 June 2024, as COVID-19 had laid bare vulnerabilities in international preparedness. Most had an entry-into-force date of 19 September 2025. Four of the states that turned down the changes to procedure in 2022 still had a more distant target in view: September 19, 2026. However, Articles 59 and 61 still leave room for legitimate refusals; reservations follow separate processes. They do not get erased away by the calendar.

For example, it records rejections of the 2024 package from Iran, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Slovakia. Their later legal arguments are to look for notices of withdrawal (not assuming elapsed time beats rejection). An opt-out is still an opt-out no matter how much its exceptions clash with the narrative one would prefer.

The amendments nevertheless matter. A new, second guideline for a “pandemic emergency” identifies an actual/potential communicable-disease emergency characterized by widespread international transmission that overwhelms health systems and leads to significant social or economic disruption, necessitating rapid, coordinated intensified equitable collective international action. Context: It is a defined form within the public health emergency of international concern alert mechanism and not an alternative to this basic alert.

It does not transform WHO into a world government either. And while it may offer temporary recommendations, its position remains legally nonbinding as it lacks enforcement power for anything done domestically, including lockdowns. But legal noncoercion does not remove political pressure. A global emergency declaration can leverage resources, spending and national priorities. Such influence merits clear evidence, open-ended uncertainty and closer examination.

The sharper criticism concerns delivery. Article 54 bis creates a (nonpunitive, facilitative and expressly consultative) States Parties for Implementation Committee. It can facilitate collaboration; but it is not a tribunal that can order pharma technology transfers. Mistaking institutional structure for binding access will only hand vulnerable populations another failed pledge in a slick diplomatic package.

The stand-alone WHO Pandemic Agreement was also adopted in 2025. The pathogen access and benefit-sharing annex was still being negotiated at the September 14–18, 2026 meeting in Geneva. The core bargain is a moral imperative: countries depositing pathogen materials and sequence information must gain initial, equitable access to vaccines, diagnostics and treatments that result from those investments.

Governments must take action on four fronts.

One key action to address the legality conundrum is for WHO to post an easy-to-search and perpetually updated register of the IHR text (in each country), alongside rejections, reservations and withdrawals. Legal transparency is essential infrastructure.

Second, all emergency declarations should include transparent summaries of available evidence, lay descriptions of uncertainty, conflicts-of-interest statements and clear criteria for reassessment. Domestic legal authority, proportionality, legislative oversight and judicial review of the national restrictions needs to be an obligation.

Third, equity commitments should be turned into financed contracts: early procurement with purchase or donation conditions, in-country production, robust licensing and coincident delivery timelines. The sharing of that pathogen must not be a subsidy for products that will ultimately be priced out of the reach of those that contribute.

Fourth, funding for preparedness should focus on laboratories and healthcare workers and building resilient local services, with public reporting of actual readiness.

We need credible global coordination; we require accountable governments. Sovereignty is empty as long as states can do nothing to protect their populations; solidarity has no meaning when access is determined by buying power.

The next pandemic will reveal the discrepancy in between the guidelines that governments trumpet and true protection.

Fransiscus Nanga Roka

Faculty of Law University 17 August 1945 Surabaya and Managing Partner Law Firm Victorious Indonesia