HEALTH – As the 76th World Health Assembly in May 2023 approaches, reactions against the World Health Organization (WHO) Pandemic Treaty are mounting. Republican senators in the United States demand that the entry into force of this agreement be consented (or not) by the Senate. A bill was introduced by 17 representatives to require that “any convention, agreement or instrument for the prevention, preparation and response to pandemics that the World Health Assemblies will reach is subject to ratification by the Senate”.
In December 2021, the 194 Member States of the WHO initiated a process to develop the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB), “responsible for drafting and negotiating a WHO convention, agreement or other international instrument on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response”. The OIN held its first meeting in March and June 2022, at the end of which the main axes of this Treaty were proposed. One of the proposals of this body was “to empower WHO to fulfill its mandate as the directing and coordinating authority for international health work, including for pandemic preparedness and response”.
The second ISO meeting was held in July 2022 to agree that this Treaty will be adopted under Article 19 of the WHO Constitution and will be “legally binding” on signatories. A decision welcomed by the director general of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “The importance of a legally binding instrument cannot be overstated: it will be part of our collective legacy for future generations,” did he declare.
A “reward for the failure of the WHO”
A report, a copy of which was sent to Member States on 1 February 2023, will be considered at the 76th World Health Assembly, which is being held in May 2023. The OIN hopes to conclude the agreement in May 2024, allowing the WHO to declare pandemics and subject Member States to its authority “directing and coordinating international health work”.
Article 19 of the WHO Constitution stipulates that the adoption of agreements and conventions “shall come into force” in each State that has ratified them “in accordance with its constitutional rules”. However, the draft of the Treaty mentions in its article 35 the possibility for a signatory State to apply, “provisionally, partially or completely”the provisions of the text. “The Biden administration can indicate that it is provisionally putting this Treaty into effect upon the simple signing of the Treaty”professor of international law, Francis Boyle, told the newspaper The Epoch Times.
This is why 17 Republican senators, led by Ron Johnson, representative of Wisconsin, presented, on February 15, 2023, the “No OMS Pandemic Preparedness Treaty Without Senate Approval Act”. The authors of this text demand that this pandemic agreement must be considered a treaty, which requires the consent of a majority of the Senate, or two-thirds.
The senators recall that “WHO and our federal health agencies have failed miserably in their response to COVID-19”. And “failure” who, they continue, “should not be rewarded with a new International Treaty increasing the power of the WHO at the expense of American sovereignty”.
“dictatorial powers”
Francis Boyle believes that this text, even adopted, will not hinder the entry into force of the Treaty once signed by President Joe Biden. In a “Debriefing” interview for France-Soir, he explained that the WHO convention “would violate the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties” circumventing the consent of national parliaments.
The text “will enter into force provisionally in the United States until the Senate decides whether to give its consent to the Treaty. I am not personally aware of any other treaty which provides for its provisional application pending the United States Senate giving its opinion and consent to the Treaty”he added.
In his interview at France-Eveninghe claimed that if the WHO got “these dictatorial powers, she will be able to order to undertake so-called medical measures which you (..) will not cure you (…) They will be able, during a pandemic, to order confinements, masks or even more vaccines”. This Treaty, once its text is in force, will establish, according to him, “a world state, police, medical and scientific” whose authority “will override that of the States and their constitutions”.
This Treaty already aroused an outcry shortly after the first meeting of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body. On April 22, 2022, the Association of Polish Independent Physicians and Researchers met at the Warsaw Press House to warn the international population against this project.
“What’s going to happen when the head of the WHO hits the ‘pandemic’ button? Today, we are going to try to answer these questions, to make Poles aware of a real danger to their civic freedom”, explained Anna Kurkowska, presenter of the press conference. A few weeks later, it was the International Alliance for Justice and Democracy that denounced a project “liberticidal and anti-democratic”.