Diplomatic Prophylaxis Of Public Health Emergencies Of International Concern

WHO, UNSC and the (mis)alignment between states and international organizations in responding to the pandemic of the century

Abstract

A term appropriate to preventive medicine, prophylactic care, imported here for political and diplomatic purposes, can be implemented to avoid a Public Health Emergency of International Concern - the so-called PHEICs. The COVID-19 pandemic is not the first use of this health protocol, which was adopted in 2005, in the International Health Regulations, but it is certainly the biggest usage of the concept in this Century, so far. However, the way in which bodies such as the World Health Organization and the United Nations Security Council deal with this type of situation is not always standardized, which leads to certain questions about the diplomatic capacity to deal with this type of issue, which also involves the typical intersectorality of health issues at the domestic level of States. The UNSC does not always consider a PHEIC to be a security emergency, and when it does, there is apparently a geopolitical bias. In any case, as Martti Koskenniemi emphasizes, the way each institution and legal branch will deal with a crisis, using its own internal logic and history, determines how the contingencies will be handled - including the responses of the private sector, the public sector and, in this case, of International Relations.