Welcome to the Cato Podcast. I'm Ryan Bourne, Cato's R. Evan Shaff Chair for the public

understanding of economics. Contagious disease control is a legitimate role of government, even in most

libertarians' conceptions of the appropriate role of the state. But fairly often, the impact of such diseases can be global,

requiring institutions or at least cooperation beyond nation states.

Pathogens obviously cross borders.

Information about new threats overseas really matter.

And international standards can help avoid significant death and injury.

Well, that means that there's a case for international institutions across nations in theory to deal with this.

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed just how badly the existing World Health Organization performed such a role in practice.

So grave were its failures that the United States and Argentina

have withdrawn or in the process of withdrawing from the WHO, while many other countries are also

deeply unhappy with it. But withdrawal doesn't make the case for effective cooperation any weaker.

It simply means we need a better, albeit different approach.

And that's why I think a new March 26 report from the International Health Reform Project is so

timely. Called the Right to Health sovereignty, it argues that the WHO's failures in COVID

were not isolated mistakes, but the product of deeper structural problems.

And it calls for a narrower, more disciplined international health architecture rooted in ethics, individual agency, national sovereignty, and clear accountability.

Now, Roger Bait is a fellow at the International Centre for Law and Economics and the Brownstone Institute.

And he's a member of the panel behind that project. He joins me on the podcast today. So Roger, welcome to the Cato podcast.

It's great to be with you, Ron. So Roger, you know, we libertarians obviously have principles

that help inform what government shouldn't, shouldn't do. And some of those frameworks help us

think about, you know, what international institution should do too. But I know that this wasn't do. And some of those frameworks help us think about, you know, what international

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