An International Legal Framework for the Sharing of Pathogens: Issues and Challenges is a paper, authored by Professor Abbott at Florida State University, about the legal frameworks available to regulate pathogen sharing. Published in 2010 after the H1N1 outbreak, it has a special emphasis on sharing influenza samples. The paper argues that the regulations should be negotiated at the World Health Organization (WHO) due to the Public Health nature of the regulations, but recommends bringing in expertise from the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the World Trade Organization (WTO)  so that there does not end up being split regulations from all those organizations. 

This paper is part of the Governing Pandemics resource collection, an initiative of the Global Health Centre at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. The initiative, which launched an online portal in July 2021, is a curated online repository of resources on issue areas in which the global community must improve in order to better prepare for and respond to future pandemics. The issue areas are:

• Countermeasure Innovation & Access
• Financing
• International Health Regulations
• National, Regional & Global Preparedness
• One Health
• Pandemic Treaty
• Pathogen & Benefit-Sharing
• World Health Organization