Introduction to a Special Issue on Reforming the International Health Regulations

Abstract

This special issue of the International Organizations Law Review is dedicated to the potential reform of the International Health Regulations (IHR)? It may be surprising to readers of this journal that a whole issue is focusing on a normative instrument rather than directly on an international institution. This choice may be explained by many factors that render the IHR a particularly interesting instrument at the crossroads of international law, the law of international organizations, and complex governance questions on how to produce a global public good such as the protection of humankind from the ravages of infectious diseases. The World Health Organization (WHO ), as the institutional custodian and manager of the IHR, has progressively and holistically integrated the latter into its governance as a component of its broader health emergency functions. The IHR -the primary legal instrument to prevent and control the international spread of disease -has also inevitably become a normative benchmark for other international institutions, thus raising delicate questions of regime complexity and coordination.2 The COVID-19 pandemic has amplified and exacerbated these issues and projected them to the highest level of international politics.(3)