Who’s Afraid of the WHO

A sign of the World Health Organisation (WHO) at their headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, on Dec. 7, 2021. Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images

Commentary

By way of a preamble, let me note the irony that pandemics are a perfect example of “problems without passports,” in the late U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s words, that require solutions without passports.

Yet, one of the solutions imposed with encouragement from the World Health Organisation (WHO)—sans any sort of pushback—to manage the COVID-19 pandemic was vaccine passports.

Once betrayed, twice shy of the message: “Trust us. We are from the WHO, here to keep you safe.”

On March 11, I wrote an article criticising what appeared to be a slow motion coup d’état by the WHO to seize health powers from states in the name of preparing for, conducting early warning surveillance of, and responding to “public health emergencies of international [and regional] concern.”

The coup was in the form of a new pandemic treaty and an extensive package of more than 300 amendments to the existing International Health Regulations (IHR) that was signed in 2005 and came into force in 2007.

Both are up for voting at a meeting of the World Health Assembly in Geneva from May 27 to June 1.

Why I Disagree With the Good Doctor

On May 3, The Australian newspaper published a reply by Dr. Ashley Bloomfield, co-chair of the WHO working group on the IHR amendments.

Dr. Bloomfield was New Zealand’s Director-General of Health from 2018–22 and received a knighthood for his services in the 2024 New Year’s Honours list. His engagement with the public debate is very welcome.

Rejecting the charge that the WHO is engaged in a power grab over states, Dr. Bloomfield wrote that as a one-time senior U.N. official, I would know that “no single member state is going to concede sovereignty, let alone the entire 194 members.”

I bow to the good doctor’s superior medical knowledge in comparison to my non-existent medical qualifications.

Unfortunately, I cannot say the same with respect to (1) reforms across the U.N. system, or (2) sovereignty, or (3) the relationship between “We the peoples” (the first three words of the U.N. Charter) on the one hand, and U.N. entities as agents in the service of the peoples, on the other.

On the first point, I was seconded to the U.N. Secretariat as the senior adviser to Mr. Annan on U.N. reforms and wrote his second reform report that covered the entire U.N. system: “Strengthening the United Nations: An Agenda for Further Change” (2002).

The topic of U.N. reforms, both the case for it, and the institutional and political obstacles frustrating the achievement of the most critical reforms, forms a core chapter of my book, “The United Nations, Peace, and Security.”

I was also involved in a small Canada-based group that advocated successfully for the elevation of the G20 finance ministers’ group into a leaders’ level group that could serve as an informal grouping for brokering agreements on global challenges, including pandemics, nuclear threats, terrorism, and financial crises.

I co-wrote the book “The Group of Twenty (G20)” with Andrew F. Cooper, a colleague in that project.

On the second point, I played a central role in the U.N.’s reconceptualisation of sovereignty as state responsibility and citizens as rights holders. This was unanimously endorsed by world leaders at the U.N. summit in 2005.

On the third point, in “Utopia Lost: The United Nations and World Order” (1995), Rosemary Righter, the former chief leader writer at The Times of London, quoted Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s description of the U.N. as “a place where the peoples of the world were delivered up to the designs of governments” (p. 85).

So yes, I do indeed know something about U.N. system reforms.

Risk to the Sovereignty of 200 Nations

Sir Ashley was merely echoing the talking points of the WHO chief.

Addressing the World Governments Summit in Dubai on Feb. 12, Director-General (DG) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus attacked “the litany of lies and conspiracy theories” about the agreement that “are utterly, completely, categorically false.”

“The pandemic agreement will not give WHO any power over any state or any individual.”

They doth protest too much.

If Australia chooses as a sovereign nation to sign the new accords, that does not mean there is no loss of effective sovereignty (that is, the power to make own health decisions for Australians) from that point on.

This is why all 49 U.S. Republican senators have strongly urged President Joe Biden to reject the proposed changes.

The expansion of “WHO’s authority over member states during” pandemic emergencies, they warn, would “constitute intolerable infringements upon U.S. sovereignty.”

In addition, 22 U.S. attorney-generals have informed President Biden that the WHO writ under the new accords will not run in their states.

On May 8, the UK said it would not sign the new treaty unless clauses requiring transfer of pandemic products were deleted.

Under Article 12.6.b of the then-draft, the WHO could sign “legally binding” contracts with manufacturers to get pandemic-related “diagnostics, therapeutics or vaccines.”

Ten percent of this is to be free of charge, and another ten percent at profit-free prices. In the latest, April 22 draft, this last requirement comes in Article 12.3.b.i in slightly softer language.

The UK wants to retain the right to use British-made products first to address domestic requirements as judged by the government, and only then to make them available for global distribution. The draft, the government fears, will undermine British sovereignty.

On May 14, five senators and nine lower house representatives from the Australian Parliament wrote a formal letter to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese expressing deep concern over the likely prospect of Australia signing the accords that “will transform the WHO from an advisory organisation to a supranational health authority dictating how governments must respond to emergencies which the WHO itself declares.”

If adopted and implemented into Australian law, they wrote, these would give the WHO “an unacceptable level of authority, power and influence over Australia’s affairs under the guise of declaring ‘emergencies.’”

The best way to allay these fears and concerns would be to return responsibility to where accountability lies: with the national government and parliament.

States should learn to cooperate better in global pandemic management, not hand effective decision-making powers and authority to unelected and unaccountable international technocrats.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.