From 9 to 14 February 2026, the Intergovernmental Working Group (IGWG) of WHO Member States convened for its fifth official session to advance negotiations on the PABS Annex to the WHO Pandemic Agreement. Pursuant to Article 12 of the Pandemic Agreement, the PABS Annex is intended to further elaborate a multilateral and legally grounded system that enables the rapid, safe and traceable sharing of pathogen materials and related sequence information, while inseparably linking such access to fair and reliable benefit-sharing. Whether such a system can prove both politically sustainable and operationally viable will depend above all on a precise definition of its scope, an enforceable con tractual and institutional design, and its coher ence with existing international frameworks.
With a view to the 79th World Health Assembly (WHA79) scheduled for May 2026, the fifth negotiation round exposed divergent views on how the Annex should be advanced within a narrowing political window. While a broad coalition of developing and emerging economies insisted on a much more precise definition of obligations, reciprocal commitments and oversight mechanisms, the European Union and other delegations advocated a more disciplined focus on those elements that remain politically achievable within the limited time available. Under this pressure, discussions repeatedly reverted to the instrument’s core structural questions, in particular its scope, its legal relationship with national access and ABS regimes, the role of industry, and the concrete design of benefit-sharing. What may initially appear to be a setback can also be seen as an effort to secure political agreement on structural decisions regarding the Annex under increasing time pressure. To understand these divergences, it is worth considering the structural conditions under which states are conducting these negotiations.
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About this series
The ‘Geneva Telegram’ analyses and documents the processes in Geneva's multilateral organisations on current topics. The reports on multilateral issues draw on the expertise of the KAS Geneva team and external authors. The Geneva Telegram is supplemented by the Maps of the Month, which summarise the voting results of UN member states on selected topics.