From security to solidarity: The normative foundation of a global pandemic treaty

In response to the ongoing discussion about creating a new pandemic treaty, we first identify that the security discourse has dominated global health governance. Yet, we argue that the solidarity discourse is necessary for promoting global health and compliance with relevant legal instruments in the post-COVID era. At the critical moment where transformation of the global pandemic response regime is about to happen, we consider that the sense of feeling prepared prior to a disease outbreak and the sense of urgency when it happens require an ethical reason – that is, global solidarity. Without it, the institutional redesign might not work. The belief in and realisation of global solidarity, shared between global citizens and the nation-states they constituted domestically, include both dimensions of self-interest and global public good. The former comes from the expectation for the boomerang effect of sharing, and the latter accumulates all the primary and side benefits from the process of sharing burden and effort. Thus, the discourse of global solidarity is not only ethically necessary, in order to ensure commitment to carry costs to assist others of equal membership, but also practically necessary, in order to promote the incentives of seeking international support and cooperation.