MELBOURNE, Australia—The Albanese government is being urged to provide public and parliamentary debate on the proposed pandemic treaty following concerns Australia could cede sovereignty under the legally binding global treaty.
This comes just days before the 194 World Health Organisation (WHO) member states convene at the 77th World Health Assembly meeting on May 27 to discuss the world’s first pandemic agreement.
This also follows the publication of an open letter by 14 Australian politicians who have asked the prime minister not to sign the treaty.
Speaking at a press conference hosted by the Aligned Council of Australia in Melbourne, Australia, emeritus professor Ramesh Thakur, a former assistant secretary general of the United Nations, said the risks of “over centralisation and control” by the WHO under the proposed treaty could undermine democracy, and should be scrutinised.
“There’s no rush, and we should take our time, put [the pandemic treaty] on hold, go through the whole thing carefully, and make sure we have a public debate that’s open and robust, and a parliamentary debate that’s open and robust,” Mr. Thakur said on May 11.
“If after that we are satisfied and we have made changes and tweaks, fine—we do need multilateral solutions to problems, but until then, put it on hold at the very least.”
The pandemic treaty was due to be delivered on March 29, and amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR) were due at the end of January. According to the IHR, member states are required to be given four months to consider any new amendments before they vote. Currently, neither document has been finalised.
Apart from the treaty, the WHO will push for amendments to the current IHR, seeking to make its current non-binding recommendations binding. This includes granting the WHO director-general the power to impose vaccine mandates, border closures, and other measures.
Not All Agree on the Issue of Sovereignty
Mr. Thakur said that the proposed treaty would make the Director-General of the WHO the “single most powerful individual bureaucrat in the world,” as he could declare a pandemic emergency or a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC), and tell what other countries should do.He added that the COVID-19 pandemic saw a “de facto coup” by an “expert class against elected governments” that created many problems related to the pandemic’s management, including “democratic deficits.”
This was concurred by Dr. David Bell, a former medical officer at the WHO, who said that uniform policies across diverse populations during the COVID-19 pandemic were problematic.
For instance, the same policies were enacted for populations with a large proportion of obese and elderly people, as in countries like Uganda, where half of the population is under 20 years old.
“It’s a built-in pathology of international organisations and any bureaucracy that the solution to any problem is more bureaucracy,” Mr. Thakur said.
However, Dr. Ashley Bloomfield, co-chair of the WHO’s Working Group on Amendments to the International Health Regulations (WGIHR), has criticised Mr. Thakur’s statement, saying that the WHO cannot dictate what member states can do.
“The so-called ‘bureaucrats’ attending have a mandate and strict instructions from their governments. Rest assured that all of us involved are resolutely focused on a single agenda: preventing, preparing for, and responding to outbreaks with a view to heading off the next global pandemic.”
Given Mr. Thakur’s global experience in the UN, Dr. Bloomfield said that Mr. Thakur would know that the wording of any UN agreement or treaty would be “meticulously scrutinised” and that “no single member state is going to concede sovereignty” either through the International Health Regulations (IHR) or Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) processes.
In response, Mr. Thakur said that under the present texts of the two accords, the decision-making power to declare and respond to a pandemic emergency will be transferred over to the WHO “to the extent that many of these are legally bounding or, and/or states in various clauses, undertake to follow guidance from the WHO.”
Mr. Thakur gave the example of monkeypox in July 2022, in which the chief of the Global Health Agency of the WHO declared an international emergency.
The number of deaths from monkeypox at that time was five, and when the emergency was lifted 10 months later, the total deaths worldwide were 140.
“It was a demonstrable instance of badly flawed judgment on the part of the DG, or the director general,” Mr. Thakur said.
“But with the new accords, he will not only be able to declare that emergency—once he does so on his own again—countries will undertake to do various things at his request.”
WHO’s director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has previously said, “We don’t want that power, and we’re not trying to get it.”
Government Says Treaty Will Not Take Away Australia’s Sovereignty
During a Senate hearing in February, members from the Department of Health and Aged Care said the WHO had no legal authority to force member states to adopt any of its recommendations under the pandemic treaty.“Australia has its own sovereignty in regards to making policy decisions around health for Australians and our borders. I don’t think I can be any clearer,” Malarndirri McCarthy of the Australian Labor Party, representing the Department, said when questioned by One Nation Senator Malcolm Roberts.
“Any proposed changes to Australian law to implement amendments to the International Health Regulations would have to be considered and passed by Australia’s Parliament in order to become legally binding in Australia,” the document states.
“Any changes to the IHR must be in line with the instrument’s core obligations to control the international spread of disease and strengthen countries abilities to coordinate and cooperate in response to a health emergency.”
Meanwhile, Law Professor Augusto Zimmermann said that while most members of the legal profession do not agree that an international law, such as the pandemic treaty, is legally enforceable, it may “motivate” the federal government to trigger external affairs power in Section 51(29) of the Constitution.
“And that is when international law will be real law in Australia, because as long as it’s just an agreement, an international agreement, it doesn’t have the force of law,” Professor Zimmermann said at the May 11 press conference.
“Thank God for this, because we have something called the dual system, which means that we have two different systems of law, and international law is not considered to be part of law unless it is turned into a domestic one.”
However, Professor Zimmermann said that there is a caveat: if the Albanese government signs the pandemic treaty, there will then be a push for legislation.
“And they will excuse themselves, and they will shift the blame to unelected bureaucrats,” he said, adding that he can foresee lockdowns and mandatory vaccinations if this path is taken.
“When you have the problem of concentration of power in the hands of a few, it’s going to be an impossible task to bring these people into account because they choose those who will be overseeing the process, even with royal commissions and things like that.”
The Prime Minister’s Office was approached for comment but deferred The Epoch Times to the Department of Health and Aged Care, which did not provide a response by press time.
