The International Responsibility of the World Health Organization in Case of Pandemics and the Role of Individuals

Abstract

With the incidence of COVID-19 in the organised social life, the work of the World Health Organization was tested on the coordination and prevention before a new and infectious disease. Given that the WHO is empowered with certain competences by its Constitution and the International Health Regulations, it is relevant to discuss whether the conduct of the WHO respected the content of those international obligations in the handling of the pandemic. This paper, hence, examines the conduct of the WHO in the immediate moment before and after the declaration of COVID-19 as a pandemic within the framework of international resposability.