The New York Times | March 12, 2020
The national governments that signed onto the international regulation also left themselves a loophole, which they are exploiting now.
The loophole was the product of hours of negotiations in Geneva, where the revisions were finalized in 2005, according to Gian Luca Burci, who served as the agency’s legal counsel for 11 years. Mr. Burci said negotiators stayed up until 5 a.m. before agreeing on a trade-off that balanced “public health considerations and the retention of the ultimate political power.”