International Health Regulations (2005) – Third edition

Overview

The International Health Regulations (2005) (IHR) provide an overarching legal framework that defines countries’ rights and obligations in handling public health events and emergencies that have the potential to cross borders. The IHR are an instrument of international law that is legally-binding on 196 countries, including the 194 WHO Member States.

This third edition contains the first amendment to the IHR (2005): a revision to Annex 7 adopted by the Sixty-seventh World Health Assembly in 2014. The amendment provides that the period of protection from vaccination with an approved vaccine against infection with Yellow Fever, and the validity of the related certificate, will be for the life of the person vaccinated rather than a period of ten years as previously required. In accordance with the WHO Constitution and the IHR (2005), this amendment entered into force for all States Parties on 11 July 2016. There were no reservations or rejections concerning the amendment submitted by any State Party within the period required by the IHR (2005).

This edition also updates Appendix 1 containing the list of IHR (2005) States Parties (to include Liechtenstein and South Sudan). As of the Sixty-ninth World Health Assembly in 2016, five Review Committees have been convened under the IHR (2005) and reported with conclusions and recommendations on key aspects of the functioning and implementation of the Regulations. The reports of the five Review Committees are available here.