How law can help solve the collective action problem of antimicrobial resistance

Hoffman, Steven J.; Bakshi, Reema; Rogers Van Katwyk, Susan

Redirecting the approach to AMR towards national-level action, as the World Health Organization (WHO) has done by encouraging countries to develop national action plans on AMR, represents progress. 10 However, only appealing to countries to take on the responsibility for acting on this issue-particularly low and middle-income countries-is also not appropriate. Expecting individual countries to bear the responsibility and costs of addressing AMR is unreasonable, when the international community is also set up in such a way that the efforts of individual countries acting alone will likely fail. Such failure stems from the reality that individual countries also face disincentives and constraints in acting on their own. A single country might invest its resources and take significant steps to mitigate AMR, yet that country's efforts can be easily undermined by a few resistant microbes tagging along on an international flight from one country to another country.