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The Russian aggression against Ukraine was strongly condemned in numerous UN bodies. In the course of the past week, the pressure on the Russian Federation increased visibly. At the beginning of the week, the UN Human Rights Council had voted on holding an urgent debate. Five member states had spoken out against it. Towards the end of the week, an independent commission of enquiry on the situation in Ukraine was set up with only Eritrea voting alongside Russia against it. The text of the resolution also notes the decision by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to proceed with opening an investigation into the situation in Ukraine, as rapidly as possible. 39 states had so far officially referred the situation in Ukraine to the ICC. The UN General Assembly in New York also strongly condemned the Russian invasion in a historic "Uniting for Peace" resolution.
There were not many breakthroughs at the 150th session of the World Health Organization (WHO) Executive Board meeting at the end of January. However, the decision to strengthen the International Health Regulations (IHR) is seen as an important step for international cooperation on pandemic preparedness and global health governance.
The Map of the Month January illustrates the joint voting behaviour of the Members of the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) with Germany and China in 2021. A total of 80 resolutions were adopted in the Council last year, 38 of which had to be put to a vote due to a lack of consensus. In addition to the EU Member States, the United Kingdom, South Korea and Ukraine voted most frequently with Germany, while China, Cameroon, Eritrea and Russia, Venezuela and India's votes least frequently aligned with Germany's. On the other hand, Cuba, Venezuela, Russia, Eritrea and Bolivia in particular voted most often with China, while EU countries (especially the Czech Republic), South Korea, Ukraine, the Marshall Islands and the United Kingdom voted with China particularly rarely. The African countries abstained comparatively frequently, with Malawi still voting most frequently together with Germany.
This week, WHO member states have gathered at the second World Health Assembly Special Session and adopted a critical decision that will launch negotiations for a WHO convention, agreement or other instrument for pandemic prevention, preparedness and response. The second map shows the 14 countries that expressed interest in piloting the Universal Health and Preparedness Review, a periodic peer-review modeled after the Universal Periodic Review for human rights situations under the auspices of the UN Human Rights Council. (more below)
So-called plurilateral initiatives are discussions at the WTO in which only a part of its members are participating. They can i.a. aim at creating new rules or liberalising tariffs. Given the very difficult discussions on a multilateral level, in plurilateral initiatuves have been considered by many WTO members as crucial to reinvigorate trade cooperation at the WTO. Ongoing or concluded plurilateral initiatives focus on services domestic regulations, e-commerce, MSMEs, trade and gender, investment facilitation, environmental goods and government procurement. In addition - given that the WTO Appellate Body is currently blocked - 52 WTO members have agreed on a Multi-party interim appeal arbitration agreement (MPIA) which is an alternative system for resolving WTO disputes that are appealed by a WTO Member. As the map of the month map demonstrates, the vast majority of WTO members participates in at least one plurilateral initiative, some are taking part in all current plurilaterals.
The 48th UN Human Rights Council convened in Geneva from September 13 to October 11, 2021. Important votes were held, among other things, on a special rapporteur on Afghanistan, on the termination of the mandate of the Group of Eminent Experts on Yemen or on the recognition of the right to a clean and healthy environment and the establishment of a special rapporteur on climate change and human rights. On October 14, the new members of the UN Human Rights Council were elected in the UN General Assembly in New York. With a comeback of the US others, all members of the UN Security Council will be represented on the Human Rights Council starting from January 1, 2022,
September's map of the month illustrates how many COVAX vaccine donations were delivered to recipient countries by the end of September. The COVAX Facility, co-led by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), Gavi, and the World Health Organization (WHO), advocates for rapid, fair, and equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines around the world. Since the first international shipment to Ghana on February 24, 2021, the COVAX Facility has already delivered over 313 mln. doses of COVID-19 vaccine to 145 territories. Due to a lack of donations, the COVAX Facility will not reach its original 2021 goal of 2 billion doses until early next year. However, the revised target of 1.2 bln. doses, which will be reached by the end of this year, is sufficient to protect 20% of the population, or 40% of all adults, in all but one recipient country.
The COVAX facility, co-led by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), Gavi, and the World Health Organization (WHO), consists of several parallel mechanisms to increase rapid, fair, and equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines across the world. The Map of the Month of August visualizes the donor countries' contributions to two different structures via which the COVAX initiative obtains and distributes vaccines to the eligible 92 low- and middle-income economies. While COVAX allows for dose sharing from a donor country's existing national supply, the COVAX Advance Market Commitment (AMC) mechanism raised funds from high- and low-income countries and worked with pharmaceutical partners before successful vaccine development and continues to pool financial resources so that doses can be produced and procured at scale as soon as vaccines receive regulatory approval.
Director KAS Genf Office
