On February 1st this year, the World Health Organisation released the first draft of its much heralded pandemic response treaty. The draft treaty, snappily titled the ‘Convention or Agreement on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response’, is proposed as a solution to what the WHO calls the “catastrophic failure of the international community in showing solidarity and equity” during the “coronavirus pandemic”.
A supposed lack of solidarity amongst national governments will not be the “catastrophic failure” uppermost of many readers’ minds when thinking back on Government health policy over the last three years. Despite this, the WHO’s draft treaty proposes preventing a recurrence of this alleged failure by substantially enhancing the powers of the WHO relative to those of national health authorities.
It does this despite initially affirming “the principle of sovereignty of States Parties in addressing public health matters” in its opening recital, and despite recognising the principle of state sovereignty as one of the guiding principles of the treaty in article 4. Yet notwithstanding these reassuring nods to the notion of state sovereignty, the WHO’s real attitude towards state autonomy can be gauged by a quick glance at the rest of the recitals and provisions in the agreement.
In setting out the WHO’s interpretation of the factual background to this draft agreement, many of the other recitals focus on the purported practical inability of individual sovereign states to respond adequately to the unique health challenges of the modern world. Hence other recitals note that “a pandemic situation is extraordinary in nature, requiring States Parties to prioritise effective and enhanced cooperation”; that “the international spread of disease is a global threat with serious consequences… that calls for the widest possible international cooperation”; and that “the threat of pandemics is a reality and that pandemics have catastrophic health, social, economic and political consequences”. These recitals strongly imply that state sovereignty can be of limited importance in the face of such extraordinarily grave threats.
Similarly, while recognition of state sovereignty is given as one of the guiding principles of the agreement, it is somewhat overshadowed by the raft of other guiding principles, which include abstract things like “equity”, “solidarity” and the “right to health”. Indeed, article 4 goes on to ominously assert that “previous pandemics have demonstrated that no one is safe until everyone is safe”, strongly suggesting that adherence to the principle of national sovereignty during a pandemic is not just an outdated approach to take, but a positively selfish one.
The draft agreement therefore goes on to assign considerable power to the WHO to influence and shape the responses of national health authorities to any future pandemic. The breadth of ambition of the agreement is made clear in article 5, which applies the agreement in a far-reaching way to “pandemic prevention, preparedness, response and health systems recovery at national, regional and international levels”.
Subsequent articles go on to prescribe the policies to be followed by States Parties to the agreement in each of these areas. As examples of what is intended, articles 6 and 7 set out steps to be followed to improve logistics and the workings of the global supply chain for quicker dispersal of what are euphemistically termed “pandemic-related products” (read pharmaceuticals), after which article 8 of the agreement addresses “regulatory strengthening”. Sadly, the regulatory strengthening envisaged in this agreement is not the strengthening of the accountability of national health regulators to the public, but rather the strengthening of those regulators’ accountability to the inter-governmental blob. Article 8 therefore requires signatory states to “strengthen the capacity and performance of national regulatory authorities and increase the harmonisation of regulatory requirements at the international and regional level”. In layman’s terms, more funding and powers for the regulators, yet concurrently less independent decision-making from them as well.
Subsequent articles further limit the discretion of national health authorities in responding to future WHO designated pandemics. Article 11 requires signatory states to “adopt policies and strategies… consistent with… the International Health Regulations” (themselves the target of amendment by the WHO), while article 15 stresses “the need to coordinate, collaborate and cooperate, in the spirit of international solidarity” with the various bodies active in the international healthcare space in the formulation of policies and guidelines. There are references to “establishing appropriate governance arrangements”, presumably well away from potentially meddlesome interference by elected representatives. These governance arrangements are to be complete with “mechanisms that ensure global, regional and national policy decisions are science and evidence-based”. Think blanket mask and vaccine mandates.
Signatory states will also have to take part in “multi-country or regional tabletop exercises every two years” to prepare them for the next pandemic, presumably to ensure that all health authorities remain fully briefed on the acceptable line to take in the event of any such new pandemic being declared, and to deter any of the signatory states from being tempted to go off-script as Sweden did in 2020.
Last but not least, a plethora of comfortable sinecures will be created for the international administrative class, by way of the creation of a governing body for the agreement under article 20, a consultative body for input into decision making by amorphous inter-governmental stakeholders under article 21, and a secretariat under article 24.
Conspicuously lacking in the agreement is any reference to democracy, elected legislatures, or the necessity of regulators and health authorities being accountable to national electorates. Instead, the treaty represents a brazen attempt to further move health policy away from regional or national governments and into the hands of a rarefied class of globalist administrators.
It should be stressed that the current text is only a draft, and that it may be subject to amendments following discussion between the WHO and member states. Further, even if the U.K. does sign this agreement, it will likely require ratification by Parliament under the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010, and will also require implementation via domestic legislation before it will have any domestic legal effect in the U.K. Sustained pressure now on ministers and MPs might just influence any U.K. Government proposals to amend the treaty at draft stage, or alternatively such pressure might conceivably prevent the U.K. Government from signing an unacceptably worded agreement in the first place. Either way, now is the time for action to prevent the crystallisation at international level of the very policies and approaches many of us have railed against at national level for the last three years.
Adam Cross (a pseudonym) is a U.K. qualified barrister specialising in international trade law, with both public and private sector experience.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
The last time I was “asked” to leave a venue occurred last Sunday when I was waiting in front of a door to a performance room for a concert to start to be allowed to enter. It materialized itself in form of two guys suddenly approaching me and trying to throw me down a steep stairwell of seven or eight meters length. I have no idea why they did this because they didn’t bother telling me and only started yelling that I must absolutely leave now (still without telling me why) when I frustrated their attempts by holding fast to a door frame.
Such is everyday life for people who are guilty of the two social crimes of being both male and alone.
I didn’t hold amplified speeches about topics guaranteed to infuriate certain other paying customers.
So, you were trying to steal their doorframe! No wonder.
Just counterbalancing two guys who were both taller and significantly heavier than me who were trying to use their combined weight to push me over the edge of the staircase. Objectively, they were a bunch of pretty harmless attackers, but not for want of good intentions.
So not only do we have a man who evidently has a problem with free speech but also is supportive of kids being indoctrinated into the toxic trans ideology cult at school. Evidently this is a clear-cut example of the ”feminisation of society” being to blame for the downfall of civilization once again. Well what else could it be?
Meanwhile, you absolutely do need an ugly lump of concrete called ‘art’ that nobody is even going to look at in London. And what is ”transmisogyny” or ”transfemicide” when it’s at home?
”New statue unveiled in Londons Trafalgar Square to honor TRANS people.
The installment features the face of 726 trans activists from Mexico and the UK and is designed to ‘unite the trans community around the world.’”
https://x.com/OliLondonTV/status/1836443411345248495
Transmisogyny — Claiming that men costumed as women are men because of hostility to women.
I’ll pass on transfemicide because femicide is already a nonsense propaganda term. The only thing that’s sort-of special about murders of women as opposed to murders in general is that they a lot rarer. But dividing murder victims posthumously into groups of different inherent value is IMHO something only a totally perverted mind could come up with. All violent crimes are equally despiccable and none of the victims should have had to suffer them.
I think femicide is focusing on the murder of women and girls because they are women/girls by men. I’ve never heard of women killing men because they are men?
Femicide is a term associated with the so-called war on women, ie, that there’s an organized global “culturally driven” effort of men to commit violent crimes against women because – as everyone knows – men just hate women because women are not men. That’s a term invented people having their own heads so much up their respective posteriors that their (theoretical) worldview is seriously at odds with the actual world.
As I already wrote: I refuse to concern myself with ideas of people who think that what they call femicide is qualitatively different from and much more serious than mere homicide as the overwhelming majority of homicides are just mascucides, to coin a term in the same lineage. IMO, people who believe something likes this urgently need a couple of loose screws in their heads tightened.
What did you expect? It’s Brighton. LGBTQXYZ and all that malarkey is practically a religion there.
I just watched a bit on GB news where Bev Turner was in fits of laughter at this nonsense of children identifying as wolves etc and them actually being indulged in their absurdity instead of what should happen is them told off and made to stop this utter garbage. Bev even managed to squeeze in a little joke that “what if there is a full moon”, which went totally un-noticed. Ofcourse we had the token Liberal on Jonathan somebody or other trying to defend this nonsense as Liberals tend to do, and even manged to link this crap to the Trans issue. Well done to GB News and Bev Turner for doing what other mainstream channels don’t do and laugh right in the face of this garbage.
What, you mean to say that Bev, a woman, is *against* this dangerous nonsense and Jonathan, a man, is defending it??
You’re telling me that Liberal woketards come in a male variety as well??
Well I’m flabbergasted at learning about this truism.
Seriously though, I’m just waiting to see how the resident misogynists are going to spin this article/general topic to be all the fault of women, because so far it’s Jiminy
Good at doing a ‘dump and run’ post, hurling accusations, leaving disparaging remarks and pointing fingers, not so keen on offering up any supporting evidence. It’s what happens when one has a pathological obsession and carries contempt around like an extra appendage though. You ignore all the facts which contradict your world view because to acknowledge reality means your protective bubble of delusion might just implode, and then where would you be?
Every human behaviour to the Liberal Progressive is now some kind of malady or other instead of what it really is —-which is a jumble of crap, stupidity or criminality. But along come the Liberal Progressives riding over the hill to cure us all of our absurd acquired malady’s at great taxpayer expense, and in the process creating whole armies of therapists, psychologists and ever more bureaucrats to administer all the clutter
I suspect he was a Lib Dem. He was certainly not Liberal or liberal.
I wouldn’t want to drink in a pub where the landlord was such a priggish woke twat.
Seconded.
Although I have the feeling he won’t lose much custom in a place like Brighton.
Oh no! David Lammy and the Labour government, which happens to have Keir Starmer at the helm. Utterly epic Woketards. And yet we’re being told this is a white, middle-class woman’s gig…tut tut, chaps;
”I tried to warn you that Labour are obsessed with this utter woke nonsense.. bisexual flags ffs.”
https://x.com/EssexPR/status/1836676368400007613
Some comments;
”This is a big part of what is wrong with Britain. The woke mind virus. Virtue signalling nonsense – not a serious government or country. What an utter embarrassment Lammy is.”
”Can Lammy please stop it !! He is making a mockery of this country wherever he goes around the world and everytime he opens his mouth. Personally, it makes me ashamed !”
”Absolute madness, I wonder how this is going to go down with Countries that do not approve of this nonsense? How can the Foreign Secretary promote this, he is an imbecile.”
My 18 year old son asked me the other week, “if I identify as a cat or dog, would I still have to pay tax, because cats and dogs don’t pay tax?” He has his feet firmly on the ground and is not going to ‘identify’ as anything, but it was and is a serious question. How serious are these people and the government about treating people as they ‘identify’? It would appear they are totally serious, therefore if identifying as another animal, i.e. not a human being, isn’t accepted as a reason not to pay tax, surely you could sue them for discrimination under The Equality Act 2010, and if not, why not?
As marriage is neither based on religion nor on permanence and freely entered-into unions can be ended on six months notice, without cause, by either party, why are marriages to animals or siblings not permitted.
This is NOT something I favour but I just wonder what is the logic and when will the animalists get around to making it lawful.
It seems like some of our vibrant diverse communities suffer from such insecurity that they cannot tolerate a small group of people having a different opinion.
Ironically when they say they don’t feel safe, I think actually they are telling the truth. They don’t feel safe because their world view is extremely fragile and in permanent danger of collapsing due to its inherent contractions.
At some point they might discover that the truth cannot be expelled even by the most skilled security guards.
I think all 50 people thrown out should claim compensation for the trauma of being evicted for holding a protected view under the Equality Act. Forcing the landlord to re-host the meeting would only give him extra sales. I would never wish to darken his woke doorstep again.
Brighton
All you need to know.
A grubby seedy and rather tatty town.
Who knew there were that many free-speechers in basket-case Brighton?
How can a belief be unlawful?