A Convention on Animal Protection to Prevent Future Pandemics

With the COVID-19 death toll approaching three million in March of 2021, twenty-five heads of state echoed the World Health Organisation’s call for a global pandemic treaty. With the majority of the world's focus since being dedicated to pandemic preparedness and response, insufficient attention has been paid to our ability to prevent pandemics in the first place.

Like Ebola, HIV-AIDS, Nipah Virus, SARS, and others, COVID-19 spilt over from animals to humans, with our high-risk contact with, if not mistreatment of, animals lying at the heart of each of these zoonotic disease outbreaks. As such, without a global agreement to regulate our interaction with animals, a repeat of the current pandemic is simply a matter of time.

Join this panel of attorneys and academics as they discuss how a newly proposed treaty, the Convention on Animal Protection for Public Health, Animal Welfare, and the Environment (CAP), not only holds the promise of being humanity's first and best line of defence against future pandemics by creating a universal platform for animal protection but would also recognise that animals, as sentient beings, deserve to have their well-being accounted for.

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