Reforming global governance for improved pandemic prevention and response

The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed or confirmed many serious gaps and flaws in the legal and institutional frameworks (both global and regional) that should prevent, contain and respond to the international spread of diseases, and that should prevent outbreaks from becoming pandemics. COVID-19 has rudely tested many fields of international law and policy beyond health, from human rights and trade to transport and financial stability. The disruption brought about by almost two years of the COVID-19 pandemic has led to discussions and negotiations – at times controversial and divisive – about the most urgent reforms to ensure that this will be the last pandemic.

Since the end of 2020, discussions and negotiations have pointed to a few main themes:

1. The weakness of the International Health Regulations as the sole global legal instrument for pandemic prevention and containment;
2. The need to provide the international community with stronger legal tools through a new “pandemic treaty”;
3. Ambivalence around the role and effectiveness of WHO and the need for new institutional arrangements; and
4. The challenge of rethinking the way in which life-saving medical countermeasures are developed, manufactured and allocated.

Whatever normative and institutional solutions will eventually be agreed upon, they will have to treat pandemics as a continuum requiring interventions at different stages as well as systemic risks not dissimilar to climate change and nuclear safety. The lecture will provide an opportunity to discuss some of the blind spots and crucial points along the “pandemic continuum” that should be addressed as a matter of priority, including prevention of zoonotic spillover and a health-sensitive mechanism to promptly share pathogen samples and genetic sequences as well as the benefits deriving from their utilization.

2021 Miegunyah Distinguished Visiting Fellowship

The Miegunyah Distinguished Visiting Fellowship Program enables overseas scholars of international distinction to make an extended visit to the University and contribute to the University’s academic, intellectual and cultural life. The Fellowships are awarded annually, following an application and selection process that begins with nominations from University of Melbourne Faculties.

The Miegunyah Distinguished Visiting Fellowship Program arose from a recommendation by the Russell and Mab Grimwade Miegunyah Fund Committee - the body responsible for the management of the Russell Grimwade bequest.

Sir Russell Grimwade was an industrial chemist by training and a man of wide-ranging interests, including forestry, native timbers and printing, and was the author of two books. He was a member of the University Council for 20 years from 1935, including a period as Deputy Chancellor.

Miegunyah (a word from an Aboriginal language, possibly Dharuk (Sydney), that includes the meaning ‘house’) was the Grimwades’ home from 1911 to 1955. Both Miegunyah and Sir Russell’s art collection were bequeathed to the University of Melbourne in his will of 1949 and presented to the University after the death of Lady Grimwade in 1972. The art collection is housed in The Ian Potter Museum of Art, the University Archives and the Baillieu Library.