Can New Delhi reconcile the global north and south?

An examination of the on-going negotiations around the WHO Pandemic Agreement reveals a stark reality: while COVID-19 demonstrated that a virus respects no borders, post-pandemic diplomacy has quickly retreated behind national lines. The United Nations High-Level Meeting in New York highlighted a growing geopolitical schism between the Global North and Global South. At the heart of this divide is a persistent structural injustice—low- and middle-income countries regularly share crucial pathogen genetic sequence data during outbreaks, yet find themselves locked out when multinational pharmaceutical companies monetize that data into patented, high-priced vaccines and therapeutics. This phenomenon, rightfully labelled “vaccine apartheid,” exposed the fragility of reliance on goodwill and voluntary mechanisms like COVAX. The Pandemic Accord was intended to replace charity with binding global obligations, yet its draft exposes how deeply entrenched commercial interests and sovereign anxieties remain.