A d-dimensional framework is a pair (G, p), where $$G=(V,E)$$
G
=
(
V
,
E
)
is a graph and p is a map from V to $${\mathbb {R}}^d$$
R
d
. The length of an edge $$xy\in E$$
x
y
∈
E
in (G, p) is the distance between p(x) and p(y). A vertex pair $$\{u,v\}$$
{
u
,
v
}
of G is said to be globally linked in (G, p) if the distance between p(u) and p(v) is equal to the distance between q(u) and q(v) for every d-dimensional framework (G, q) in which the corresponding edge lengths are the same as in (G, p). We call (G, p) globally rigid in $${\mathbb {R}}^d$$
R
d
when each vertex pair of G is globally linked in (G, p). A pair $$\{u,v\}$$
{
u
,
v
}
of vertices of G is said to be weakly globally linked in G in $${\mathbb {R}}^d$$
R
d
if there exists a generic framework (G, p) in which $$\{u,v\}$$
{
u
,
v
}
is globally linked. In this paper we first give a sufficient condition for the weak global linkedness of a vertex pair of a $$(d+1)$$
(
d
+
1
)
-connected graph G in $${\mathbb {R}}^d$$
R
d
and then show that for $$d=2$$
d
=
2
it is also necessary. We use this result to obtain a complete characterization of weakly globally linked pairs in graphs in $${\mathbb {R}}^2$$
R
2
, which gives rise to an algorithm for testing weak global linkedness in the plane in $$O(|V|^2)$$
O
(
|
V
|
2
)
time. Our methods lead to a new short proof for the characterization of globally rigid graphs in $${\mathbb {R}}^2$$
R
2
, and further results on weakly globally linked pairs and globally rigid graphs in the plane and in higher dimensions.