Recent public health emergencies of international concern, like the COVID-19 pandemic and the mpox emergency, have prompted calls by multiple states and non-state actors for more “equity” in global health law and governance. This term plays a central role in the 2024 amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR) and in the text of Pandemic Agreement adopted in May 2025 at the World Health Organization. However, what the concept practically entails during public health emergencies of international concern remains contested. 

This project, PANDEQUITY, seeks to unpack the intricate role of international law as a determinant of (in)equity in public health emergencies. The spotlight is particularly on how different fields of international law, and the interpretation of specific provisions within those fields by different actors, not only lead to diverging understandings of what equity requires in different scenarios, but also to legal and political dynamics that impede the attainment of any substantive notion of equity in health emergencies altogether. Such a setting warrants a deeper, interdisciplinary inquiry into the reasons for diverging interpretations of equity; how and why specific actors push one interpretation or another or downright reject the term; and how existing norms of international law have, and could foster (in)equities in past, current and future public health emergencies of international concern. 

Combining conceptual and methodological tools from international law and international relations, the project will begin by mapping how the term equity is interpreted in various fields of international law, and by different state, non-state and hybrid actors embedded in a fragmented global health governance landscape. Through content analysis methods from social science and a doctrinal legal inquiry, PANDEQUITY will scrutinize diverging understandings of equity across political contexts. In a second step, and based on original interview data, the project will study the motivations behind and the effects of the various interpretations on the prospects of achieving (forms of) equity in global health. 

Based on these findings, the project team will propose, in collaboration with other experts, the formulation of a “consensus statement” to offer a comprehensive and operational understanding of what is legally required under equity in public health emergencies. This will be useful for different stakeholders, including decision-makers, non-governmental organizations and civil society broadly understood, particularly in the implementation of new and existing norms.

Principal Investigators: 

Dr. Pedro A. Villarreal (German Institute for International and Security Affairs)

Prof. Dr. Christian Kreuder Sonnen (Friedrich Schiller University Jena)

Duration: June 2026 – May 2029

The project is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, GermanResearch Foundation) – 576151394.