Global Health Governance Implications in Covid-19 Pandemic

Several states around the world have then taken similar measures in an attempt to contain and mitigate the spread of the pandemic and many have declared a state of emergency based on how much provided by its national constitutions and laws.
Italy was the first country in Europe to impose a lockdown extended to the whole territory on 9 March 2020, followed by the other EU member States.
In a short time, billions of people around the world found themselves in a forced quarantine situation; with the closing of European monuments and no public access to the most famous beaches in the US and Australia. The situation is then represented by developing countries where the health systems are not suitable for dealing with a pandemic of this magnitude.

The Coronavirus pandemic has once again exposed WHO's weaknesses in terms of rapid response to health threats related to the rapid spread of the disease.

After the experience of Ebola in 2014-2016 and in 2019 WHO announced the need for reform within its structures, yet the strengthening of health regulations did not take place.

In today's globalized society, the spread of infectious diseases represents and will represent one of the main threats to humanity in the future. 

The case of COVID-19 unfortunately marks the abandonment of a multilateral approach in management of the health crisis in favor of unilateral policies, which saw the closure of borders and the withholding within its own territory.

However, the international health crises that characterized the beginning of the 21st century have in practice has been shown how States cannot manage its effects by acting individually and in total isolation. The necessary use of multilateral prevention and response mechanisms ha to transform the individual state's interest in its health security into a global concern.

Therefore, the WHO can and must play a coordinating role by virtue of the legitimacy that it derives from being a technical body. Indeed, the statement pandemic, although not a legally binding act, has influenced the decision-making process of individual Member States through the activation of national plans for pandemic management. Therefore, we can consider the pandemic declaration as one multilateral governance tool of a global health emergency, through which the Director General exercised his public international authority under the WHO technical skills.

Link to BioDiritto published article Full (available in Italian) https://www.biodiritto.org/content/download/3844/45493/version/1/file/58+Pavone.pdf