by Dr. David Bell, Daily Sceptic:
In late May of this year, representatives of our governments will meet in Geneva, Switzerland, to vote on acceptance of two documents that, taken together, are intended to transform international public health and the way states act when the Director-General of the World Health Organisation (WHO) declares an emergency. These drafts, a Pandemic Agreement and amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR), are intended to set up legally binding agreements under which states undertake to follow recommendations from the WHO regarding the human rights and healthcare of their own citizens.
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Although these agreements will impact on health, economies and human rights in complex ways, they are still being negotiated by various committees less than seven weeks prior to the intended vote. They have been developed with unusual haste and are intended to proceed without countries having time to fully assess their implications, on a premise of an urgent threat that has already been demonstrated to be unfounded or grossly exaggerated.
The agreements are being promoted by wealthy countries as promoting equity. Yet, the rush to vote and implement will inevitably undermine equity by preventing states with fewer resources from equally participating in their development and having time to assess impact on their more fragile healthcare environments. This approach has not been so apparent in international health since the colonial era.
This is a poor and dangerous way to develop legally binding agreements. Rather than designing a coherent pandemic package that is proportionate to risk and burden and sensitive to the legitimate context of individual states, the world risks rapidly institutionalising a confusing set of legal regimes and overriding authorities reflecting the wants of competing global actors who shouted loudest, as evident in a recent public letter. The WHO, when inaugurated, was supposed to represent something better.
What is needed now is for countries– either those of lower income being marginalised once more by this process, or others that still hold that colonialism was wrong – to insist on a postponement of the process in order to simply ensure health, legal and ethical integrity. ‘Equity’, as the WHO Director-General likes to say.
The drafting of the Open Letter below addressing these issues was led by three lawyers with experience with the WHO, within the UN and in international treaty law, Dr. Silvia Behrendt, Associate Professor Amrei Muller, and Dr. Thi Thuy Van Dinh. It simply calls upon the WHO and Member States to extend the deadline for the adoption of the amendments to the International Health Regulations and a new Pandemic Agreement at the 77th World Health Assembly to safeguard the rule of law and equity. To proceed with the current deadline, against the WHO’s own legal requirements, would not just be legally wrong but demonstrate unequivocally that equity and respect for states rights have nothing to do with the WHO’s pandemic agenda.
Dear Dr. Tedros, Director-General of the World Health Organisation
Dear Co-Chairs Dr. Asiri and Dr. Bloomfield of the WGIHR,
Dear Co-Chairs Dr. Matsoso and Mr. Driece of the INB,
Dear national delegates of the respective working groups,
Both the Working Group on Amendments to the International Health Regulations (2005) (WGIHR) and the International Negotiating Body (INB) negotiating the Pandemic Agreement were mandated to deliver the definite legal wording of the targeted amendments of the International Health Regulations (IHR) as well as of the Pandemic Agreement to the 77th World Health Assembly (WHA), taking place at the end of May 2024. These processes have been ushered through in haste to “capture a post-COVID-19 moment”, despite evidence that there is limited risk of another pandemic occurring in the short-to-medium term. In other words, there is time to get these measures right.
Yet, due to the speed in which these processes have occurred both negotiation processes are threatening to deliver illegitimate policies by violating the very objectives and principles of equity and deliberation which are proclaimed to be safeguarded through the pandemic law-making process under the auspices of WHO. Consequently, the politically set deadline for adoption at the 77th WHA must be lifted and extended to safeguard the lawfulness and transparency of the processes, clarifying the relationship between the amended IHR and the new Pandemic Agreement, and ensuring an equitable and democratic outcome.
The WGIHR’s Non-Compliance with the IHR Excludes a Lawful Adoption at the 77th WHA
The adoption of any amendments of the IHR at the 77th WHA can no longer be achieved in a lawful manner. Currently, the WGIHR keeps negotiating the draft amendments, with the aim to finalise the package of proposed amendments during its eighth meeting scheduled for April 22nd-26th that is then to be presented to the 77th WHA. This modus operandi is unlawful. It violates Article 55(2) IHR which sets out the procedure to be followed for amending the IHR:
