The Shortcomings of International Organizations in Addressing the Challenge of COVID-19 - The Cases of WHO and WTO

Abstract

Under the influence of COVID-19, the shortcomings of some international organizations were exposed. This paper focused on the problems of the WHO and WTO in responding to COVID-19 and made suggestions. Lack of power and funding was a major reason for the WHOs failure in responding to COVID-19. Accordingly, we believed that the WHO should establish powerful authority and reform its funding mechanism as soon as possible. In the case of the WTO, although the WTO took some action in response to COVID-19, the shortcomings of the existing treaties, the Trade Policy Review Mechanism, and the Agreement on Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property limited the role of it. In addition, Looseness among members was also an issue that the WTO needed to address. Therefore, the WTO needed to do the following: first, clarify the ambiguous concepts in the existing treaties; second, develop new treaties; third, reform the TPRM; and fourth, solve the problems in the TRIPS agreement.