The World Health Organization (WHO) is the main global body responsible for international public health crises and a central player in the response to the COVID pandemic. This conversation with Gian Luca Burci, former General Counsel of the WHO, was the launch event of the Global Governance in the Age of COVID initiative of Northwestern University’s Center for International & Area Studies.

The COVID pandemic has brought international organizations back into the spotlight, highlighting the need for global coordination on health, communication, research, and more. It has revealed both strengths and weaknesses of existing international institutions. The Global Governance in the Age of COVID project supports public knowledge on how the pandemic is remaking the world of international institutions.

Gian Luca Burci is Adjunct Professor of International Law at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, where he also serves as Academic Adviser with the Global Health Centre and Director of the Joint LLM in Global Health Law and Governance. Burci began in the Legal Office of the World Health Organization in 1998 and was appointed Legal Counsel in 2005. He previously served as Legal Officer at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna and in the United Nations Secretariat in New York for nearly a decade. He is co-editor of the Research Handbook on Global Health Law (2018), editor of Global Health Law (2016), and co-author of World Health Organization (2004).

The discussion was moderated by Ian Hurd, Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center for International & Area Studies at Northwestern University. The 4th Edition of his book International Organizations: Politics, Law, Practice was published in 2020. He is also the author of How to Do Things with International Law (2017) and After Anarchy: Legitimacy and Power in the UN Security Council (2008), which won the Chadwick Alger Award from the International Studies Association and the Myres McDougal Prize from the Policy Sciences Society. He is also co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of International Organizations (2016). Hurd directs the Global Governance in the Age of COVID initiative.

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