International Health Regulations and PHEIC
A WHO treaty adopted in 2005 that lets its Director-General declare a public health emergency of international concern, a date that cancellation policies, parametric covers and some exclusions use as a trigger or a cutoff.
The International Health Regulations (IHR) are the WHO legal instrument that binds 196 States Parties and governs the declaration of a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC). Adopted by the World Health Assembly on May 23, 2005, after SARS, they have been in force since June 2007. The Director-General declares a PHEIC on the advice of an Emergency Committee, when an event is extraordinary, may spread across borders and calls for a coordinated response. There have been eight declarations: H1N1 in April 2009, polio in May 2014, Ebola in August 2014, Zika in 2016, Ebola in Kivu in 2019, COVID-19 on January 30, 2020, mpox in 2022 and again in August 2024. Amendments adopted on June 1, 2024, in force since September 19, 2025, add a higher tier, the “pandemic emergency.” For the market, the declaration is a public, precisely dated event that nobody disputes. Event cancellation policies use it to exclude diseases known at inception. Parametric covers and some credit contracts list it among trigger conditions. The flaw is well known: a PHEIC is binary, and it measures spread while ignoring severity. The 2009 flu proved it, declared with no marked excess mortality. Wording that refers to a “pandemic declared by the WHO” now has to say whether it means a PHEIC or the 2025 pandemic emergency.
Textbook case: on February 10, 2020, a trade show organizer buys a 2 million euro cancellation policy for a congress set for March 20 in Lyon. The COVID-19 PHEIC was declared on January 30. The policy excludes any disease subject to a PHEIC before the inception date. The cancellation ordered in March is not paid: the risk was public before signing, and the clause says so in one line.
International Health Regulations, IHR 2005, PHEIC, public health emergency of international concern, pandemic emergency
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