What Can International Disaster Law Learn from Global Health Responses? Workshop Report and Briefing Document

In December 2024, the UN General Assembly adopted by consensus a Resolution agreeing to, ‘elaborate and conclude a legally binding instrument on the protection of persons in the event of disasters by the end of 2027.’ Such a Treaty is very much needed; while millions of people each year are impacted by disasters, there is a lack of systematicity in international disaster law and response. Disaster law is an area with clear linkages to health: disasters are often occasions of crisis when the health and wellbeing of large groups of people are at grave risk. Global health law is an area which is further on in terms of the development of a substantive treaty focused on a subset of health crises; that is, pandemics. In that regard, the Member States of the World Health Organization adopted a Pandemic Agreement in May 2025 intended to ameliorate some of the deficiencies experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic. Considering the more advanced development of international treaty making in the global health arena, the University of Strathclyde Law School organised an ESRC IAA funded workshop with a view to producing a set of reflections and recommendations for negotiators to the International Disasters Treaty, as well as other relevant stakeholders, on what international disaster law can learn from experiences in responding to global health emergencies. In this policy brief, we set out a range of insights as well as key lessons gleaned from the workshop. The policy brief also reflects on developments since the convening of the workshop itself, with a view to distilling key lessons of relevance.