South Africa #12 >>20887048
Don’t ignore the real threat of the WHO pandemic treaty
David Frost 16 May 2024
The crunch is coming. Later this month, global health ministers will decide in Geneva whether to endorse the proposed new World Health Organisation (WHO) pandemic treaty.
This treaty actually stems from a British initiative by the then-prime minister Boris Johnson in March 2021. In a joint article with other leaders, he argued that the world needed a more coordinated approach to managing pandemics in future.
Sadly, since then the Government has never set out its actual negotiating objectives. This was a mistake.
The failure to do this on the pandemic treaty has unfortunately created suspicion about what the Government is really trying to do and what it is willing to defend – all the more so as the conclusion approaches. That’s why the lead minister, Andrew Stephenson MP, was reluctantly forced to the House of Commons on Tuesday.
It lies in the actual point of the treaty: the creation of a new system of pandemic management under the WHO authority and binding under international law.
The director general of the WHO, Dr Tedros, can declare the existence of a pandemic. Member states take on an obligation to cooperate with the WHO “to the fullest extent possible”, to share information and “pandemic-related health products”, to establish a supply chain network, and much more – and of course to fund it. This is all new.
And that is the problem with this treaty, too. Our sovereignty is not formally affected, but we are taking on an international law obligation to work with the WHO system. When the next pandemic comes, government lawyers, MPs, and commentators will say “you must do what the WHO says, or you are breaking international law”.
This would matter less if we could be confident of the neutrality and competence of the WHO. In fact we can be confident of no such thing: it has a track record of incompetence, poor decision-making, and politicised conduct, not surprising considering the extent of China’s influence. Giving it a blank cheque is highly risky.
More:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/05/16/dont-ignore-the-real-threat-of-the-who-pandemic-treaty/