Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, World Health Organization director general, briefs the media during a press conference at WHO headquarters in Geneva, 7 August 2025 (Keystone/Salvatore Di Nolfi)

US exit and funding loom over WHO executive board meeting. States will stare down a funding cliff and a legal limbo caused by Washington’s messy departure at the World Health Organization’s executive board meeting this week in Geneva.

🧪TACKLING TOXIC CHEMICALS. The UN’s newest scientific body will hold its first meeting ever this week. In the style of the IPCC on climate and the IPBES on biodiversity, the science-policy panel on chemicals and waste – or ISP-CWP – was established last year to provide countries with authoritative assessments on the science of chemical pollution and policy advice.

Procedural yet key. The first meeting, which will be held behind closed doors, is expected to sort out procedural matters, including electing a chair and a bureau and, importantly, picking its future home, with both Kenya and Switzerland placing bids. Nairobi hosts the UN Environment Programme, where the new panel sits, while Geneva houses the conventions that deal with chemical substances and waste.

Delegates will also try to hash out the rules of procedure that will determine how it decides on a programme, as well as how decisions are made.

Red flags. Civil society is already on the lookout for red flags. The Center for International Environmental Law warned in a blog post about the risk of attempts by countries to restrict participation, write in consensus as a de facto veto-blocking power and weaken safeguards against conflicts of interest.

👑KING OF PLASTICS. After last summer’s widely reported failed talks, plastics treaty negotiations are returning to Geneva for a single-day meeting. Seemingly procedural and low-key, it could prove decisive for the future of negotiations, orphaned since the controversial resignation of former chair Luis Vayas Valdivieso last autumn.

Ambassadors from Chile, Senegal and Pakistan are all vying for the role.

Get up to speed with our previous reporting: Can Nairobi drag plastics treaty talks out of diplomatic limbo?

💸TÜRK’S OFFERING PLATE. The human rights office will launch its annual appeal for $400 million on Thursday, calling on countries to pitch in with donations. After the UN secretary general’s proposed cuts to the UN regular budget, voluntary contributions will be all the more crucial for the human rights branch, whose operations rely on up to 60 per cent on those contributions.

Freefall. “The global human rights system is hanging by a thread,” wrote UN human rights chief Volker Türk in the latest appeal statement. He cited a lack of finance for accountability mechanisms and human rights advisers. In 2025, the office faced a combined shortfall in mandatory and voluntary funding of $65 million.

Last year, it managed to raise slightly over half of its $500m appeal. The United States, once a top contributor to the office, didn’t appear on its lists of donors.

– By Paula Dupraz-Dobias and Michelle Langrand