Pandemics and Global Governance 1

Pandemics and Global Governance

Topic Statement and Annotated Bibliography

Kayla McConnell
GOVN 540 Global Governance and Law
Dr. Davina Bhandar
April 29, 2021
 Pandemics and Global Governance 2

The COVID-19 pandemic has ushered in a new climate of uncertainty which is fuelling

protectionism and playing into nationalist narratives. The ideas of globalization and global

governance are adapting as states race to protect their citizens and their own vulnerabilities. The

disruption afflicting the modern world combines a deadly and highly infectious virus, a global

economic recession, the erosion of global governance and the failure to coordinate a coordinate

global response. The world order looks to defend the institution of democracy, while respecting

the health and security of nations. The question remains can global governance survive the

Covid-19 pandemic, or will a new world order emerge? This paper will argue that the Covid-19

crisis has turned into a moment of truth, in which the presumptions, prejudices and processes of

the post-Cold War era were exposed and continue to faulter. The Covid-19 pandemic has

accelerated long-term changes and exposed some underlying truths about our societies and

pattern of international relations, that the system is indeed already broken. No new global and

regional balance of power will emerge because of the pandemic. Trends that have already been

visible for some time will emerge with greater clarity.

Global Governance Theory

The current situation of the Covid-19 crisis is an example in which elements of

sovereignty, discipline, biopower and biopolitics, and governmentality are combined in uneven

rapidly shifting ways. Biopower is an important concept to discuss when looking at the effect of

pandemics and the current health crisis. Biopower can provide justification as means to an end

for countries and states as a form of government control, going beyond the typical government

actions used to control the actions of society, biopower creates a sense of fear and division

among societal members. As Inda (2002) says the logic behind Foucault’s idea of biopower is to

maintain the “welfare of the population, the improvement of its condition, the increase of its
 Pandemics and Global Governance 3

wealth, longevity, health, etc.” and a perceived overreaching imperative to keep as many people

alive as possible by what ever means necessary, with tools of state sovereignty. The Covid-19

crisis has challenged official responsibility for how decisions are made because of both

disciplinary power and biopower and who will ultimately make the decisions government official

or medical experts. As Ecks (2020) points out, the rule of experts. which in the context of Covid-

19 largely means epidemiologists and virologists, these experts have frequently been invoked as

unquestioned authorities whose advice the government is “merely following” despite the fact that

the experts themselves have routinely emphasized the limits of their own knowledge, and as the

pandemic has unfolded it has increasingly become “clear that the expertise does not exist” (Ecks

2020). Therefore, government decisions or lack of has created a sense of danger constituted by

the narrative of fighting the pandemic served in imposing security justifications and exception

measures, as well as deepening the “structural reforms” that neoliberal governments consider as

their sole task to carry out. (Dias & Deluchy, 2020) argue that is with the spreading of the

COVID-19 “invisible enemy,” the governed are once again urged to adhere to a governmentality

that promotes obedience and voluntary servitude, it is this war that seeks to be both brought

about and made invisible by the governmental strategies. Although, as individuals begin and

have navigated the pandemic many have started to question the impact and role of the state and

global institutions in addressing the issues caused because of the pandemic.

Individual Sovereignty

State representatives, intergovernmental organizations, nongovernmental organizations

global governing institutions often express differing views on how individual sovereignty should

be protected especially during a unprecedent global health crisis. Over the course of the last year

there have been many appeals to ‘individual sovereignty’ brought together by a wide range of
 Pandemics and Global Governance 4

political actors across the world, united in their rejection of face masks, social distancing, and

other forms of state-imposed regulations over behavior and mobility. To ensure compliance with

COVID-19 measures countries have sought to appeal to the masses though the idea individual

responsibility to protect their fellow citizens and health care systems from collapse. Opposition

to state efforts to govern the spread of the pandemic has created, indeed, the most unlikely of

coalitions, from anarchists and natural health proponents to anti-vaxxers and libertarians of all

stripes (from the radical-ecological to the right-nativist), all mobilizing around a purported

defense of ‘personal freedoms’ and ‘individual rights’ against the sovereign power of states

(Biakasiewicz &Eckes, 2020) Protesters believe that their, fundamental rights connote universal

moral claims giving them free will to do as they please. Fundamental rights are understood as

rights that pertains to individuals, and that is actionable by individuals, but this is not always the

case. As Biakasiewicz & Ekes (2020) indicate they are envisioned as being capable of

transcending and restricting, if needed, the political power of the state.

Within modern constitutional democratic states, individual autonomy is expressed and

protected through fundamental rights, such as the right to gather, the right to religion and so on,

but also have a double-edged relationship with sovereignty. On the one hand, fundamental rights

are, in their specific codified form, an expression of a sovereign choice; on the other hand, they

protect individual liberty and autonomy (or self-rule) and limit the exercise of sovereignty.

Individual autonomy is thus necessary to create the conditions of the very collective self-rule or

‘collective autonomy’ that is the essence of sovereignty (Biakasiewicz &Eckes, 2020). During

the pandemic many countries are struggling to control the virus as individuals believe that rights

are being infringed upon, falling to understand the needs the state to protect everyone. This

further provides evidence that current governing systems are broken as individual tout public
 Pandemics and Global Governance 5

health measures ignoring their needs as global citizens. Further proving Garrastazu (2021) main

argument, that hat no government policy can be highly effective without citizens' involvement in

and commitment to decisions that impact their lives.

Defending Democracy amongst a Global Pandemic

Good governance nationally and on a global scale is needed to prepare for and respond to

a pandemic, both in the initial stages and as evidence grows on the efficacy of different

preventative measures. According to Lee Jong-Wook, former Director-General of the World

Health Organization (WHO), pandemics do not respect international borders. Therefore, they

have the potential to weaken many societies, political systems, and economies simultaneously

(Davies, 2013) The global threat posed by pandemics requires a coordinated a global approach to

security as the rapid transmission of disease in a globalized world means that capacity failures in

any member state could place any other state or society in peril. It is under this premise, Flood et

al., (2020) argue that global governance requires clear lines of responsibility about which orders

of government and other institutions or actors will do what and when. Particularly in the early

part of a pandemic, there is little time for the usual rhythm of democracy and thus clear lines, or

responsibility are even more essential (Flood et al.,2020) Coordination among countries is

needed to limit the spread of infectious diseases, improve their effects, and develop potential

treatments. It requires recognition that our future is co-determined with others, and to seize the

benefits of our interconnectedness within and across countries (Flood et al., 2020).

It is argued and widely accepted that equity is seen as the central component to global

health and should be the guiding principle to improve the health and lives of all people around

the world. Yet we have witnessed and continue to see the challenges of coping with the Covid-19

pandemic, which as resulted in some countries becoming more isolationist as they seek to protect
 Pandemics and Global Governance 6

their citizens and economies (Bradley & Helfer, 2020) The current global response to COVID-19

has been mostly inward looking and nationalistic, calls this premise into question. The global

health governance response to the COVID-19 pandemic has been largely modelled from the

perspective of High-Income Countries without due consideration for how and whether it

provides a feasible parallel strategy for Low Income Countries (Eyawo & Viens, 2020). As low-

and middle-income countries continue to develop, they are often plagued with inadequate health

systems, lack of resources, and strong governing systems.

Governments have responded by engaging in abuses of power, silencing their critics, and

weakening or shuttering important institutions, often undermining the very systems of

accountability needed to protect public health. Which is argued by Repucci & Slipowitz (2020)

who state that the research strongly supports the hypothesis that the COVID-19 pandemic is

exacerbating the 14 years of consecutive decline in freedom. Further emphasizing, not only has

democracy weakened in 80 countries, but the problem is particularly acute in struggling

democracies and highly repressive state, in other words, settings that already had weak

safeguards against abuse of power are suffering the most. The findings illustrate the breadth and

depth of the assault on democracy. As one respondent on Cambodia put it, the government took

coronavirus as the opportunity to demolish democratic space. “Coronavirus was used as an

excuse for the already oppressive government to do things that it has long planned to do, but had

not been able to.” (Repucci & Slipowitz, 2020)

The idea of governments is using the pandemic as a means exert their power and will to

advance their agendas, calls in to question the role of global governance and the role of

democracy, is the system as strong as some may believe or exposing vulnerabilities that have not

been seen before. Adkins and Smith (2020) justify this conclusion, by showing what is currently
 Pandemics and Global Governance 7

happening in Tanzania, Burundi and Madagascar as a result of the global pandemic is to

authoritarian ideology. “Tanzania is not the only country where the pandemic is meeting rising

authoritarianism. Magufuli’s denials of the seriousness of the COVID-19 pandemic and the lack

of transparency in the collection and sharing of data on rates of infections and deaths have

raised concerns. A strikingly similar situation has unfolded in Burundi, where the country’s

president is thought to have died from COVID-19 after months of official denials about the

disease’s seriousness. The government even encouraged citizens to attend religious services and

other large gatherings in the country. In Madagascar, too, the country’s authoritarian president

has been dogged by criticism, including from the WHO, about his government’s response, or

lack thereof, which has featured the promotion and distribution—including to Tanzania—of an

unproven “herbal cure.” These examples show that without a global “overreaching” system or a

unified approach, state actors that were slowly moving towards democracy may be reverting to

previous models of governance.

The crisis of democratic governance begun long before the pandemic as seen in Russia,

China and other countries, but has been heightened now more than ever and is likely to continue

after the health crisis recedes, as the laws and norms being implemented across the globe now

will be difficult to reverse. The pandemic has heightened the need to defend democracy, not as a

subsidiary component of international development assistance, but as the backbone of long-term

international development strategy, after more than three decades of a sustained international

effort to back the emergence of inclusive democracy (Cormier& Casas-Zamora, 2020). How

countries and leaders respond now during and after the crisis will ultimately determine the extent

to which democracy in many parts of the world is maintained or diminishes over time. The

inevitability of change is disguised by powerful, political, nosiness, and media voices that call to
 Pandemics and Global Governance 8

“reopen the economy” and to return to “normality” swiftly. With this statement, Swift (2020)

argues that this is a result of those that wish to maintain their powerful positions in a post

pandemic system. Which corresponds with the conclusion made by experts surveyed in

(Repucci & Slipowitz’s (2020) study that found 64 percent, agreed that the impact of COVID-19

on democracy and human rights in their country of focus will be mostly negative over the next

three to five years. As witnessed in China’s experience over the past nine months could prove a

dystopian model for the future: increased nationalist and propagandistic rhetoric at home to

drown out calls for transparency and accountability, enhanced and innovative technological

surveillance, crackdowns on individuals within and outside the country who share information

that contradicts regime messaging, and the persecution of potential critics among the domestic

elite (Repucci & Slipowitz, 2020). Without a system that global system that could enforce global

standard around governance or global institutions failing to act because the system will not allow

these issues will continue to occur as the world goes through new crises.

Role of Global Institutions in global governance within Pandemics

The World Health Organization has a major role to play in building trust and confidence

in global initiatives and responses to emergency threats and concerns. Davies (2013) insists, that

the wider United Nations system, especially bodies such as the Peacebuilding Commission and

agencies such as the United Nations Development Programme and United Nations Children’s

Fund, have a supporting role to play in helping states build the technical capacities needed to

deliver the International Health Regulations, while the marriage of security and health has helped

build the necessary global political will to implement the International Health Regulations, the

institutional, technical, and political challenges in achieving this goal cannot be overstated

(Davies, 2013) Institutional power is embedded in informal and formal rules and decision-
 Pandemics and Global Governance 9

making authority. Until its decline in the 1990s, the WHO’s power reflected its ability to

coordinate the views of health experts, its representation from most countries in the world (all

with equal voting rights), its financial resources (Patterson & Clark, 2020) and its ability to

coordinate how members states should respond to infectious disease outbreaks, to take “effective

account of the threat posed by the international spread of new and re-emerging diseases”

(Davies, 2013) Instead, the response has been haphazard, and the authority of WHO and the UN

Security Council are hobbled by disagreements between the United States, the People’s Republic

of China, and WHO (Halabi & Wilson, 2020) highlighting the premise that the system was

already broken long before the Covid-19 pandemic began as international governing bodies were

already fragile at best as a result of current international relations amongst states.

When the Coronavirus was first detected, the WHO began providing clear messaging that

countries should test, isolate, trace, treat, and countries worldwide should began shutting down

their borders (Flood et al., 2020) However, because of their limited scope of compulsory and

institutional power they were not able to enforce their recommendations, and countries started to

respond unitarily. As China and the United Sates were one for the first to detect the coronavirus,

the WHO was unable to compel other countries to act to curtail the virus. Which was the case as

Italy could not make European Union countries share health supplies, and the United States

could not force China to share data on early cases. Similarly, because the WHO has no

enforcement mechanism to punish its members for health actions (or inactions) thus, must rely

on diplomacy in order to impose its recommendations. Similarly, the WHO’s institutional power

was limited, even though the International Health Regulations obligate countries to notify the

WHO about emergent health threats to facilitate a coordinated international response (Patterson

& Clark, 2020) as infections began to spread in various countries, China and the WHO became
 Pandemics and Global Governance 10

targets of ferocious criticism, accused of colluding in their failure to control the pandemic early

on (Flood et al., 2020) followed by calls for international sanctions, withdrawal of contributions

to WHO’s work, and multilateral calls for investigations into the pandemic’s origins (Halabi &

Wilson, 2020).

The weakness of compulsory, institutional, and epistemic power explains the failure of the

WHO and individual countries to stop COVID-19, while productive and structural power

undergird responses. The pandemic initially appears to have given proponents of isolationism

and unilateralism the upper hand as they argue that the economic and human costs of COVID-19

prove global health governance’s failure (Patterson & Clark, 2020. p.431) Alvarez (2020) further

argues that there were five reasons for the WHO’s failures when it came to its response to the

pandemic:

1. An inability to overcome its state-centered roots.

2. Over reliance on soft law techniques

3. Inflexible “emergency” declarations

4. An absence of institutionalized mechanisms for cross-regime collaboration.

5. and the blind spots and pathologies that arise when experts become bureaucrats.

As a result of these problems, the WHO has been plagued with notion that they were unwilling to

criticize important member states, continue to provide mixed messaging in their reporting, their

reluctance to initially declare a public health emergency of international concern and lack of

transparency undermining its core principles as a global governance organization. Bradley and

Helfer (2020) provide a solution on how The WHO could address these problems by embracing

its authority to pressure member states to comply with the International Health Regulations;

adopting structural reforms that would facilitate collaboration with human rights regimes; giving
 Pandemics and Global Governance 11

the organization more independence from states; and expanding its expertise beyond public

health, particularly in the legal sphere.

In addition to the WHO, there are other global institutions that have a role to play in

global governance and should be at the forefront of leading a coordinated response to deal with

the Covid-19 pandemic. However, as Sakwa (2020) argues that the health crisis has exposed

underlying truths and how countries work on together on an international level, highlighting that

the G-7 once again proved itself to narrow a body to have a significant impact on managing the

crisis, while the G-20 group was unable to assume the leadership role that it had done following

the financial collapse of autumn 2008. No new balance between nationalism and multilateralism

is apparent, instead we are left with a system that is state centered and weakness of global

governance in the present era becoming clearer.

Security

Pandemics are for the most part disease outbreaks that become widespread because of the

spread of human-to-human infection. Beyond the debilitating, sometimes fatal, consequences for

those directly affected, pandemics have a range of negative social, economic, and political

consequences. These tend to be greater where the pandemic is a novel pathogen, has a high

mortality and/or hospitalization rate and is easily spread (Davies, 2013) The pandemic is a stark

reminder of the fragility of democratic governance, the rule of law, and fundamental rights.

Governments in both new and established democracies have quickly dispensed with normal

procedures to respond to the pandemic. While there is no doubt that governments must respond

quickly in a public health crisis, some balance must be found between the need for dispatch and

the need for considered and accountable policy responses (Flood et al.,2020) COVID-19 has

exposed and created vulnerabilities that follow the fault lines of pre-existing structural inequities.
 Pandemics and Global Governance 12

Indeed, it is difficult to process all the rapid and sweeping changes to our lives, social

interactions, government functioning, and global relations that the COVID-19 pandemic has

caused, even now as the virus continues flourish more than one year after the first confirmed

case with no signs of slowing down. But the devastation it has and is producing, and the unequal

distribution of harms within and across countries, demands global responses to pandemic control

that prioritize equity (Flood et al.,2020).

There have been very different political responses to COVID-19 across countries. At one

end of the spectrum there are countries that have implemented very restrictive measures such as

lockdowns and curfews to restrict interactions and movements of people. Flood et al. (2020).),

show this polarizing difference in polices and actions taken to curb the spread of Covid-19, by

indicating that at one end of the spectrum there are countries that have implemented very

restrictive measures, with China setting a global precedent, instituting what was then the largest

quarantine in world history of the Wuhan region’s sixty million people. This has since been

eclipsed as other countries have locked down to a greater or lesser degree. At the other end of the

spectrum, among Western countries, Sweden stands out for its embrace of a less restrictive

approach that some media have dubbed “anti-lockdown.” Sweden’s chief epidemiologist pursued

a strategy of mitigation: allow the virus to spread slowly without overwhelming the health

system, without recourse to harsh social isolation restrictions, and attempt to shield the most

vulnerable (Flood et al.,2020). Many of the virus’s hot spots in high-income countries include

long-term care homes, prisons, immigration detention centres, and slaughterhouses, among

others, are spaces of acute vulnerability because they are sites of long-standing structural

inequalities (Flood et al.,2020)

 Pandemics and Global Governance 13

Initially, leaders framed COVID-19 as an existential threat to national security, with the

response being a ‘war,’ the virus being an ‘enemy,’ and healthcare workers termed ‘warriors.’

This frame mobilized individuals to engage in for behaviors like social distancing, but it also

enabled some governments to justify human rights abuses, and it contributed to panic-buying,

stock selloffs, risking healthcare workers’ lives without adequate protective equipment, and

demonizing and scapegoating people believed to carry the virus like Asian-Americans (Patterson

& Clark, 2020) As national security began to be threatened, countries with substantial industrial

power increased production of masks, respirators, and other medical supplies. Countries with

little industrial capacity, in contrast, had less ability to protect and treat their citizens, and thus,

had to depend on donor aid (Patterson & Clark, 2020) this created unprecedented uncertainty

amongst global supply chains, that should have been more prepared. This calls into question

what role the World Trade Organization has when it comes to ensuring the global supply chain is

not hindered by unforeseen emergencies. Bradley & Helfer (2020) emphasize that according to

the WTO rules and regulations states can only regulate supply chains during pandemics and

cannot act more systemically prior to a crisis. These rules place WTO members in a dilemma,

they must either wait for a crisis before addressing supply chain risks or go against WTO rules to

pre-emptively protect the supply chains. They instead propose that free trade agreements should

be reformed to have stronger rules of origin and to provide policy space for members to manage

critical supply chain risks. (Bradley & Helfer, 2020).

Ethics and the Covid Vaccine

When it comes to Covid-19 and the global pandemic, the quickest way out is through mass

vaccination efforts, which ultimately is going to help in building immunity quickly and

significantly reduce the socio-economic costs of the pandemic and the erosion of democratic
 Pandemics and Global Governance 14

institutions and global governance. As Gupta& Baru (2020) point out, its with this argument that

provides a sound economic rationale for fast-tracking COVID-19 vaccine trials, and the

unprecedented scale of the global pandemic unparalleled in human history, has brought forward

a global mandate for hastening the process of vaccine discovery. However, both the science and

the public policies around vaccines are fraught with uncertainties and ethical concerns. The

COVID-19 pandemic itself has been marked by uncertainties across multiple domains, nature of

the virus, alternative treatment options, clinical outcomes, and prevention methods (Gupta &

Baru, 2020) Creating and becoming the subject of various ethical controversies in respect to the

Covid-19 vaccine, around how it is developed, how are the trails being conducted due to its fast

tracking, and the safety guidelines and mandates for wide scale use. Further, given that globally

several large pharmaceutical companies have partnered with governments and researchers, this

raises concerns about the ethics in production, pricing and distribution. (Gupta &Baru, 2020)

Like never, before the COVID-19 vaccine distributional issues may get intertwined with

global politics and governance, making strategizing an important tool at the vaccine allocation

stage. With many countries tasked with protecting their own but at the mercy at the greater

global community. The pandemic has already exposed the fault lines in terms of accessibility and

availability of health services across and within countries. (Gupta &Baru, 2020) In these

circumstances, the questions around who gets the vaccine, how and at what cost cannot be

addressed in real time but would require months of advanced planning and structures that would

have to be put in place before the vaccines become available. However, this is not the case as

witnessed in what is currently happening around the world as countries race to procure vaccines

for their own, options and moves need to be thought out it in advance to avoid troubleshooting in

real time, which can result in imperfect decision-making to the detriment of public welfare. As
 Pandemics and Global Governance 15

serious inequities exist in access to health services, and how vaccines are distributed based on

different sets of parameters of ethics and access even though countries have signed binding

contracts with manufacturers. This has become evident in the case of India, that has restricted

Oxford-AstraZenca vaccine exports triggering setbacks and vaccination efforts in many other

countries. As reported in the New York Times, the government of India is now holding back

nearly all of the 2.4 million doses that the Serum Institute of India, the private company that is

one of the world’s largest producers of the AstraZeneca vaccine, makes each day, India is

drawing up its gates as a second wave of infections hits home, holding tight to a vaccine that it

didn’t develop but that is being produced in huge quantities on its soil (Gentleman, et al,, 2021)

highlighting further perpetrating the idea of vaccine nationalism.

The World Health Organization plays a role an essential role in the global governance of

world health and disease, responsible for setting international standards and coordination of

multiple actors towards global goals, can and should sets rules and guidelines around vaccines

that need to be followed, however these are not policies and guidelines are not enforceable with

many countries choosing to ignore them and act in their own interests instead. The uncertainty

around global public health policy has increased due to the withdrawal of the USA from the

WHO, only until recently have to have rejoined the global organization. Contradicting the

critical need for equity and transparency (Gupta & Baru, 2020) Without a plan for how to ensure

equitable worldwide distribution of any vaccine, the status quo is inequitable distribution both

within and among countries. There is precedent for this concern: during the 2009 influenza

A(H1N1) pandemic, wealthy countries purchased nearly all doses of the vaccine (Nickerson &

Herder, 2020, p.599). On May 4, 2021 , the G-20 countries, except the U.S. and Russia, joined

major philanthropists to raise nearly €8 billion (approximately C$12.3 billion) for research and
 Pandemics and Global Governance 16

development of diagnostics, therapies, and vaccines, promising these would all be public goods,

and fairly distributed (Flood et al.,, 2020)

Nationalizing vaccine production is key to help realize a globally accessible COVID-19

vaccine, one that cannot devolve into vaccine nationalism and it protected by the global

governing structures, as demonstrated by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations

(CEPI), Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations (GAVI) and the WHO launching

COVAX to ensure equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines (Gupta & Baru, 2020) to the

developing world, funded by the high-income countries. While procuring vaccines for

Canadians, the Canadian government joined the COVAX initiative, by investing $440 million,

and committing an additional $75 million recently. Half of the original $440 million secured

doses for Canadians, and the other half is directed toward providing doses for 92 countries that

need help securing vaccines, as reported by Zimonjic and Cullen in March 2021. In theory

securing doses by any means necessary plays into the idea of vaccine nationalism and

protectionism as the global vaccine supply remains volatile. The article points out that Canada

has been criticized for saying it will take vaccine doses from COVAX, despite having signed

supply contracts that would ensure each Canadian could be vaccinated ten times over. (Zimonjic

& Cullen, 2021). As we live through the current health crisis. Procurement of vaccines exposes

yet another fault in the current world worder, exposing that when times are tough regardless of

agreement or pressures from international organizations states will continue to always act in their

best interests.

Solutions and Implications

With the ongoing disruptions of the current outbreak and the fear of its recurrence make a

return to our previous normality highly unlikely. Past pandemics, like the Black Death or the
 Pandemics and Global Governance 17

Spanish Flu brought about huge shifts in class relations and international power balances,

similarly to what is and will occur because of the Covid-19 pandemic (Swift, 2020) Even if

society does somehow recover, it cannot and will not look the same as it did before. As global

leadership began to change in early states of the pandemic as a result of the lack of leadership

from the United States, Beijing moved quickly and adeptly to take advantage of the opening,

filling the vacuum to position itself as the global leader in pandemic response. As Campbell &

Doshi (2020) point out China is working to tout its own system, provide material assistance to

other countries, and even organize other governments enhancing its role as a global leader.

Billions of lives will be completely changed. The trauma of abuse and other serious

interpersonal harms will remain, there may be a recovery, but there is no going back (Thom,

2020) As global leadership began to change in early states of the pandemic as a result of the lack

of leadership from the United States, Beijing moved quickly and adeptly to take advantage of the

opening, filling the vacuum to position itself as the global leader in pandemic response. As

Campbell & Doshi (2020) point out China is working to tout its own system by having a head

start in the race to offer coronavirus vaccine options for mass distribution in developing countries

(Demdigest, 2020). As Patrick (2020) shows many observers are starting to question how the

pandemic might reshape the world order, including prospects for international cooperation, with

some even anticipating an accelerated U.S. decline and the advent of a more multipolar world

and others predict a deepening authoritarian turn worldwide, with an emboldened China atop

the global standings.

The Covid pandemic has created an opportunity like never to fix a system that was

already broken as Eyawo & Viens (2020) argue that we now have chance the reset the structure,

function, and aims of global health governance. We should take this opportunity to reinvigorate
 Pandemics and Global Governance 18

and re-establish an approach to global health governance with a true central focus on equity and

contesting the status quo, forcing us to re-evaluate every aspect of personal and political lives

(Thom, 2020). There are a few ways within the global governance of COVID-19 response and

global health governance more generally to bring equity back as a central component. First, we

need to strengthen collective action and global cooperation to assure the conditions in which

people can be healthy. Secondly, we need to reduce the dominant focus on individual

responsibility for health and focus on how structural factors act as social determinants of health.

Third, we need to enhance coordination of response activities so that the actions of high-income

countries do not prevent the ability of low middle-income countries to promote health and reduce

health inequities, such as creating a global distribution guide on affordable vaccines for everyone

regardless of income. Lastly, high income countries should not be completely self-protectionist

in orientation when responding to pandemics.

International Relations theory insists on the anarchical nature of the international system,

yet beyond the absence of a formal world government, the international system is almost entirely

ordered and dominated by the will of Western Ideology and power. Institutions like the United

Nations, IMF, WTO and WHO help govern by enforcing and promoting the ideas of the

Westphalian State. Poorer, weaker states often have no choice but to accept the terms and

conditions of these institutions as they do not have the same equal standing, as powerful western

countries do, instead as we have shown are at the mercy of others as shown through the rollout of

vaccines. The current global governing system is broken exasperated and accelerated by the

Covid-19 pandemic, exposing its vulnerabilities and weakness, countries that have once fought

for world order now seek protectionist and nationalist policies to protect their own as the lasting

effects of the pandemic remain to be seen.

 Pandemics and Global Governance 19

References

Alvarez, J. E. (2020). The WHO in the Age of the Coronavirus. American Journal of

International Law, 114(4), 578–587. https://doi.org/doi:10.1017/ajil.2020.70

Adkins, Todd. L., & Smith, Jeffery. (2020, September 18). Will COVID-19 Kill Democracy?

Foreign Policy. https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/09/18/will-covid-19-kill-democracy/.

Bialasiewicz, L., & Eckes, C. (2021). ‘Individual sovereignty’ in pandemic times – A

contradiction in terms? Political Geography, 85, 102277.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2020.102277

Bradley, C. A., & Helfer, L. R. (2020). Introduction to “The International Legal Order and the

Global Pandemic.” American Journal of International Law, 114(4), 571–577.

https://doi.org/10.1017/ajil.2020.72

Cormier,Tom & Casas-Zamora, Kevin. (2020, November 4). COVID and CANADA'S chance to

defend and RENEW democracy worldwide. https://ipolitics.ca/2020/11/04/covid-and-

canadas-chance-to-defend-and-renew-democracy-worldwide/.

Dias, B. L., & Deluchey, J.-F. Y. (2020). The “Total Continuous War” and the COVID-19

Pandemic: Neoliberal Governmentality, Disposable Bodies and Protected Lives. Law,

Culture and the Humanities, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1177/1743872120973157

Davies, S. E. (2013). National security and pandemics. UN Chronicle, 50(2), 20–24.

https://doi.org/10.18356/0dfec716-en
 Pandemics and Global Governance 20

DemDigest. (2020, December 2). Autocrats using Covid vaccines to expand sharp power.

Democracy Digest. https://www.demdigest.org/autocrats-using-covid-vaccines-to-expand-

sharp-power/

Ecks, S. (2020). Lockdowns save, lockdowns kill: Valuing life after coronashock.

Somatmosphere. https://doi.org/http://somatosphere.net/2020/lockdowns-save-lockdowns-

kill-valuing-life-after-coronashock.html/

Eyawo, O., & Viens, A. M. (2020). Rethinking the Central Role of Equity in the Global

Governance of Pandemic Response. Journal of Bioethical Inquiry, 17(4), 549–553.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11673-020-10001-2

Flood, C.M., MacDonnell.V., Philpott, J., Theriault, S., Venkatapuram., Overview of Covid-19:

Old and New Vulnerabilities. In C.M Flood, V.MacDonnell, J.Philpott, S. Theriault &

Venkatapuram (Eds.). Vulnerable: The Law, Policy and Ethics of Covid-19 (pp.1-27).

University of Ottawa Press.

Garrastazu,Tony. (2021, January 28). Democratic Governance: Challenges and Obstacles in the

Midst of a Pandemic. Democracy Speaks.

https://www.democracyspeaks.org/blog/democratic-governance-challenges-and-obstacles-

midst-pandemic.

Gettleman, J., Schmall, E., & Mashal, M. (2021, March 25). India Cuts Back on Vaccine Exports

as Infections Surge at Home. The New York Times.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/25/world/asia/india-covid-vaccine-astrazeneca.html.
 Pandemics and Global Governance 21

Gupta, I., & Baru, R. (2020). Economics & ethics of the COVID-19 vaccine: How prepared are

we? Indian Journal of Medical Research, 152(1), 153–155.

https://doi.org/10.4103/ijmr.ijmr_3581_20

Halabi, S & Wilson, K. (2020)The Plausibility and Resolvability of Legal Claims Against China

and WHO under the International Health Regulations (2005). In C. M Flood. Et al,

(Eds.), Vulunerable (pp. 533-542). Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press.

Inda, X. J. (2002). Biopower, reproduction, and the migrant woman’s body . In A. J. Aldama &

N. H. Quiñonez (Eds.), Decolonial voices: Chicana and chicano cultural studies in the 21st

century (pp. 98–112). Indiana University Press.

Nickerson, J.W, & Herder, M. (2020) COVID-19 Vaccines as Global Public Goods (2005). In C.

M Flood. Et al, (Eds.), Vulunerable (pp. 533-542). Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press.

Patterson, A., & Clark, M. A. (2020). COVID-19 and Power in Global Health. International

Journal of Health Policy and Management, 9(10), 429–431.

https://doi.org/10.34172/ijhpm.2020.72

Repucci,Sarah., & Slipowitz, Amy. (2020) Democracy under Lockdown: The Impact of Covid-

19

on the global struggle for Freedom. Freedom House.

https://freedomhouse.org/report/special-report/2020/democracy-under-lockdown

Sakwa, Richard (2020) The Pandemic and International Politics. In: The World after COVID-19:

Cooperation or Competition? SAM Publications, pp. 122-128.

 Pandemics and Global Governance 22

Stewart, P. M. (2020, May 11). The World Order After COVID-19 Hinges on What Kind of

America Emerges. World Politics Review.

Swift, Richard. (2020). Politics and Pandemics. In BTL Editorial Committee (Eds.), Sick of the

System: Why the Covid-19 Recovery Must be Revolutionary (pp. 7-9. Between the Lines

Press.