Lawrence Gostin
Director of the O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University; a leading commentator on the WHO Pandemic Agreement and IHR.
Last refreshed: 12 May 2026 · Appears in 1 active topic
Does the WHO Pandemic Agreement actually force rich nations to share vaccines?
Timeline for Lawrence Gostin
Mentioned in: UK airdrops supplies to isolated island Andes case
Pandemics and BiosecurityMentioned in: Pandemic Agreement still unsigned after one year
Pandemics and BiosecurityMentioned in: PAHO flagged Southern Cone hantavirus in December
Pandemics and Biosecurity- Who is Lawrence Gostin?
- Lawrence Gostin is the founding O'Neill Chair in Global Health Law at Georgetown University and the world's leading authority on legal frameworks for pandemic preparedness and global health governance.Source: https://oneill.law.georgetown.edu/experts/lawrence-o-gostin/
- What does the O'Neill Institute do?
- The O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University conducts legal scholarship and policy advocacy on public health emergencies, international health regulations, and equitable access to medicines.Source: https://oneill.law.georgetown.edu/
- Why does Gostin say the PABS annex is essential to the WHO Pandemic Agreement?
- Gostin argues that without the Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing annex, the Agreement lacks any enforceable mechanism to prevent wealthy nations from reproducing the vaccine-hoarding seen during COVID-19, making equity commitments unenforceable.Source: The Lancet Commission on global health law
- What is the WHO Pandemic Agreement and why does it matter?
- The WHO Pandemic Agreement is a binding international treaty under negotiation to govern pathogen sharing, equitable vaccine access, and surveillance obligations; Gostin and others argue it is the central mechanism for preventing a repeat of COVID-era failures.Source: https://www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/pandemic-prevention--preparedness-and-response-accord
- How does international health law improve pandemic response?
- Binding legal instruments set mandatory surveillance timelines, equitable access obligations, and penalty mechanisms that voluntary frameworks lack, reducing the lag between outbreak detection and coordinated global response.Source: Gostin, Global Health Law (Harvard University Press)
Background
Lawrence Gostin is the founding O'Neill Chair in Global Health Law at Georgetown University and Director of the O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, the world's foremost centre for legal scholarship on public health emergencies. He served as senior adviser to the WHO Director-General and co-edits The Lancet Commission on global health law, making him the pre-eminent voice on what international legal architecture should govern health crises.
Gostin's career spans four decades of translating public health imperatives into binding legal instruments. He led the drafting process that shaped the WHO International Health Regulations revision and has consistently argued that voluntary frameworks produce inequitable outcomes: wealthy nations hoard vaccines, poorer nations receive surplus. His major works, including Public Health Law and Global Health Law, are standard texts in health-policy curricula worldwide.
On the WHO Pandemic Agreement, Gostin occupies the most prominent pro-binding position in academic circles. He contends that the Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing (PABS) annex is not an optional add-on but the operational mechanism that converts the treaty's equity commitments into enforceable reality. Without it, signatories can invoke the Agreement's spirit while reproducing the COVID-era failures of vaccine nationalism.
In the negotiations over the WHO Pandemic Agreement, Gostin emerged as the leading academic advocate for a treaty with teeth. He argued publicly that the PABS annex represents the Agreement's only mechanism for ensuring low-income countries receive actual access to vaccines and diagnostics in the next outbreak, not pledges. His position: any agreement that leaves PABS unresolved is a diplomatic document, not a public health instrument. He has also warned that the current H5N1 surveillance gap in US dairy herds demonstrates precisely why binding international surveillance obligations matter, the voluntary approach produces blind spots with pandemic potential.
