Article 19 of the Constitution of the World Health Organization (WHO) enables the World Health Assembly, by a two-thirds majority, to adopt international conventions or agreements on any matter within WHO’s competence. It was on this basis that the WHO Pandemic Agreement was adopted in May 2025. Its ratification process, however, cannot begin until the PABS Annex provided for in Article 12 has been adopted. To that end, the World Health Assembly established an Intergovernmental Working Group (IGWG), tasked with drafting the Annex and submitting it to the Seventy-ninth World Health Assembly for consideration in May 2026. From 23 to 28 March 2026, the IGWG convened in Geneva for its sixth formal meeting. Yet no agreement was reached. Instead, WHO Member States decided to resume the sixth meeting from 27 April to 1 May 2026 and to hold informal consultations in the interim. The next phase of deliberations will focus in particular on concrete rules for benefit-sharing, contractual mechanisms, and the institutional governance of the PABS System.
Delegations at an Impasse
As negotiations entered their final phase, positions grew even more fixed. The African Group, represented by Burkina Faso, together with a large number of like-minded states, is pressing for a system that imposes clear and binding obligations on all users. Anyone receiving pathogen materials or related sequence information, in their view, should be clearly identifiable, formally registered, and subject to specific conditions of use. For these delegations, traceability and accountability are essential preconditions for a credible and resilient PABS system. Access to PABS sequence information should therefore be tied to persistent identifiers and registration requirements, so that it remains possible to track where data originate, who is using them, for what purpose, and whether biosafety and benefit-sharing obligations are being respected.
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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.
