The World Health Organisation (“WHO”) will present two new texts for
adoption by its governing body, the World Health Assembly, in Geneva on
27 May – 1 June.
The new Pandemic Treaty needs a two-thirds
majority for approval and, if and once adopted, will come into effect
after 40 ratifications. The amendments to the International Health
Regulations (“IHR”) can be adopted by a simple majority and will be
binding on all states unless they recorded reservations by the end of
last year.
WHO describes the IHR as “an instrument of
international law that is legally binding” on its 196 states parties,
including the 194 WHO member states, even if they voted against it.
Therein lies its promise and its threat.
The new regime will
change WHO from a technical advisory organisation into a supranational
public health authority exercising quasi-legislative and executive
powers over states; change the nature of the relationship between
citizens, business enterprises, and governments domestically, and also
between governments and other governments and WHO internationally; and
shift the locus of medical practice from the doctor-patient consultation
in the clinic to public health bureaucrats in capital cities and WHO
headquarters in Geneva and its six regional offices.
From net
zero to mass immigration and identity politics, the “expertocracy” elite
is in alliance with the global technocratic elite against majority
national sentiment. The Covid years gave the elites a valuable lesson in
how to exercise effective social control and they mean to apply it
across all contentious issues. The changes to global health governance
architecture must be understood in this light. It represents the
transformation of the national security, administrative, and
surveillance state into a globalised biosecurity state.
The IHR
amendments will expand the situations that constitute a public health
emergency, grant WHO additional emergency powers and extend state duties
to build “core capacities” of surveillance to detect, assess, notify
and report events that could constitute an emergency.
The
existing language of “should” is replaced in many places by the
imperative “shall,” of non-binding recommendations with countries will
“undertake to follow” the guidance. And “full respect for the dignity,
human rights and fundamental freedoms of persons” will be changed to
principles of “equity” and “inclusivity” with different requirements for
rich and poor countries, bleeding financial resources and
pharmaceutical products from industrialised to developing countries.
With
a funding model where 87 per cent of the budget comes from voluntary
contributions from rich countries and private donors like the Gates
Foundation, and 77 per cent is for activities specified by them, WHO has
effectively become a system of global public health patronage.
Human
Rights Watch says the process has been “disproportionately guided by
corporate demands and the policy positions of high-income governments
seeking to protect the power of private actors in health including the
pharmaceutical industry.”
The victims of this Catch-22 lack of accountability will be the peoples of the world....<<<Read More>>>...