The Covid-19 pandemic has been one of the greatest challenges to the established international order since the Second World War and international collaboration throughout the pandemic, and since, has been particularly significant. As in the late 1940s where, to avert a repeat of the cataclysm of total war, world leaders united to establish the multilateral system we have today, it is reasonably fair to argue that a similar effort is required on the part of world leaders to strengthen preparedness for potential future pandemics.
So, I welcome the suggestion of the former Prime Minister, writing with other world leaders in 2021, that the international community should commit to producing a new international treaty for pandemic preparedness and response. I understand that such a treaty would aim to foster greatly enhanced cooperation in order to better protect the UK from the health, social and economic impacts of pandemics.
Discussions are ongoing at the World Health Organisation to this end. However, the Government will not support any treaty which compromises the UK's sovereignty. There is nothing in the proposed treaty that would impact our ability to take decisions about national lockdowns or associated measures at national level. I would certainly not support one which gave the WHO powers to make such decisions, which are rightly the preserve of national governments.
During a recent debate held on this, the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, Anne Marie Trevelyan MP, said:
“The speculation that somehow the instrument will undermine UK sovereignty and give WHO powers over national public health measures is simply not the case. I absolutely reassure both my right hon. Friend and my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Sally-Ann Hart), who raised a similar issue earlier, on behalf of all their constituents: that is not the case. The UK remains in control of any future domestic decisions about public health matters—such as domestic vaccination—that might be needed in any future pandemic that we may have to manage. Protecting those national sovereign rights is a distinct principle in the existing draft text. Other Members have also identified that as an important priority, so it is good to have the opportunity of this debate, brought about by those who have concerns, to restate that that is absolutely not under threat.”
You can watch the debate in full here.
Once adopted, international treaties only become binding in the UK when ratified by Parliament in accordance with our constitutional process. No international treaty can by itself change UK law.
If changes to UK law were considered necessary or appropriate to reflect obligations under the treaty, proposals for domestic legislation would go through the usual Parliamentary process and the UK would not ratify the treaty until domestic measures, agreed by Parliament, were in place. This process of ratification allows scrutiny by elected representatives of both the treaty and any appropriate domestic legislation in accordance with the UK’s constitutional arrangements.
