WHO Illegally Sneaks New Financing Mechanisms Into International Health Regulations
The World Health Assembly recently convened its annual meeting (27th May to 1st June) in Geneva, Switzerland. Delegates failed to reach agreement on a new pandemic treaty, but resolved to conclude negotiations on such a treaty within a year, and passed significant amendments to the International Health Regulations (2005).
Unless heads of State or relevant national health authorities explicitly reject these amendments within 10 months, they will automatically come into effect within 12 months. Many of the agreed amendments were fairly innocuous, and certainly far less damaging than the earlier proposed amendments. However, there are three aspects of the agreement that are quite troubling.
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1. These amendments were rushed through illegally
First, the manner in which this agreement was reached played fast and loose with the procedural rules of International Health Regulations (2005), which stipulated that “the text of any proposed amendment shall be communicated to States parties at least four months before the Health Assembly at which it is proposed for consideration.”
These amendments were announced to States parties not 4 months before the assembly, but at the last minute, while the assembly was already in session. No formal vote was taken. The amendments to IHR (in case you’re curious, mostly of them are bolded out in this document - curiously, one of the amendments, Article 44 bis on “coordinating financial mechanism,” should be in bold, but is not) were rushed through at the last minute, in violation of the 4 month notice required by Article 55 of IHR.
If we cannot count on the WHO to even respect the internal rules of an international convention it has played a critical role in developing, then we cannot consider it a good faith actor, and cannot trust it to responsibly coordinate something as consequential as the international response to pandemic threats. The fact that the WHO got away with skipping its own 4 month notice rule sets a dangerous precedent, and makes it even more critical that these amendments are shot down by States before the 10 month wait period has elapsed.
2. These amendments may significantly enhance WHO’s financial power
The second thing worth noting is that these last-minute amendments seem to be heavily focused on consolidating “sustainable” sources of finance for “the implementation of these regulations,” including the strengthening of States’ “core capacities” to respond to “pandemic emergencies,” such as access to health products deemed “relevant” to “public health emergencies” such as “medicines, vaccines, diagnostics, medical devices…personal protective equipment…cell- and gene-based therapies, and other health technologies.”
Of particular note is the fact that these financing mechanisms will not only be sourced and distributed by national authorities at a national level, but will also involve redistribution of funds from developed to developing countries, presumably through the mediation of the WHO. For example, one of the new amendments contemplates a mechanism which, with the consent of a State that is party to the IHR, would involve “the mobilization of financial resources to support developing countries in building developing, strengthening and maintaining…core capacities” to respond to and prevent pandemics. Essentially, this means that States would help to fund an emerging pandemic preparedness complex in the developing world, under the supervision of the WHO.
This is troublesome, because while it may seem innocuous to the casual observer, it sets in action mechanisms that could create potentially lavish health funds, partly financed by taxpayers’ contributions, destined to strengthen the infrastructure of pandemic preparedness and response, over which one entity, the WHO, has a unique amount of leverage, given the salience of its “advice,” and its ability to declare the start and end of a pandemic.
This further enhances conflicts of interests that are already quite glaring. The WHO is already financed by private foundations with significant investments in the pharmaceutical industry, including the vaccine industry, such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. So for the WHO to be anywhere near privately and publicly financed pandemic funds that will fill the pockets of Big Pharma companies or open up lucrative markets for their products in the developing world, represents a patent conflict of interest.
Even if the WHO were not already compromised by patrons with investments in Big Pharma, it is hardly advisable to institutionalise an international funding mechanisms with the power to channel taxpayers’ money into the purchase of vaccines and other medical products outside the immediate supervision of voters and national parliaments, and under the supervision of an entity like the WHO, with cosy financial ties with the pharmaceutical industry. This does not bode well for the responsible and accountable use of taxpayers’ money.
3. These amendments further legitimate political and scientific censorship
Last but not least, the amendments illegally passed on 1st June include a clause that opens the door to State-supported censorship, even though it is stated, as usual, in broad and vague terms: “At the national level…each state party shall develop, strengthen and maintain…core capacities for…risk communication, including addressing misinformation and disinformation.”
This clause is likely to be used to legitimate actions taken against dissenters from the official WHO-backed health narrative, such as requiring social media companies to take down their content, just as “disinformation” risks have been used to justify systematic censorship of dissenting voices during the Covid pandemic.
To recap, the package of amendments to the International Health Regulations just passed has three deeply troubling features: first, their shameless illegality; second, their consolidation of WHO as a financial “middleman” between public and private financiers and Big Pharma; and third, their legitimation of the “disinformation” narrative that provides a pretext for censoring dissenters from the WHO-backed health narrative.
The fundamental conflict of interest at the heart of the pandemic preparedness complex is that one of its most influential players, the WHO, simultaneously has the power to activate pandemic protocols, by announcing a pandemic without an international consensus, and benefit enormously from the activation of pandemic protocols, by having an ideal pretext to expand its funding and its bureacratic structures.
These amendments only serve to heighten that conflict by providing a legal basis for the WHO to develop new mechanisms for financing its operations and strengthening its position as a middleman between Big Pharma and artificially inflated “markets” for pandemic products in the developing world. Furthermore, if these amendments are accepted by the international community, it will be rewarding the WHO for playing fast and loose with IHR rules to accelerate its political agenda.
It is imperative that the legal representatives of States parties to the IHR, be they Ministers, Prime Ministers, or Presidents, explicitly reject these amendments within the next 10 months. It is also imperative that political pressure is placed on national governments to both reject the new IHR and opt out of any new pandemic treaty.
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