This week, the Working Group on the Amendments to the International Health Regulations (WGIHR) will resume its eight round of negotiations on May 16-17th, scheduled only 10 days ahead of the 77th World Health Assembly (WHA) on May 27th, where it is planned to vote on the whole package of draft amendments. Concerns have been raised globally by academics, parliamentarians and civil society that the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the WGIHR do not respect their own procedural requirements of Article 55(2) IHR (2005) that prescribes a four-month review period prior to a vote.
Article 55 Amendments
1. Amendments to these Regulations may be proposed by any State Party or by the Director-General. Such proposals for amendments shall be submitted to the Health Assembly for its consideration.
2. The text of any proposed amendment shall be communicated to all States Parties by the Director-General at least four months before the Health Assembly at which it is proposed for consideration.
This strange situation may be unfathomable for many. Negotiating delegations and country representations are surely composed of prominent diplomats and lawyers. However, when the matter was discussed at the fifth WGIHR meeting in October 2023, it didn’t cause them much discomfort. During the public discussion, WHO Legal Officer stated that Article 55(2) would not apply to the WGIHR as a sub-division of the WHA, disregarding the fact that Article 55(2) didn’t make such distinction, and that the WGIHR had initially intended to respect it by giving itself the January 2024 deadline. One Co-Chair of the WGIHR said that the negotiations of the previous package of amendments adopted in 2005 had continued until the morning of the 58th WHA session. This is a false precedent. The 1969 version of the IHR, amended in 1973 and 1981, had not contained any such procedural provision on amendment submission. The four-month requirement was only added to the 2005 version approved by the WHA at that meeting, and so became applicable after that time. It is therefore obvious that what happened in 2005 did not violate Article 55(2) since it did not exist.
Regrettably, the WGIHR went along with proposals to continue the work until May 2024, as noted in the meeting report.
5. The Co-Chairs noted that, in reference to decision WHA75(9) (2022), it appeared unlikely that the package of amendments would be ready by January 2024. In that regard, the Working Group agreed to continue its work between January and May 2024. The Director-General will submit to the 77th World Health Assembly the package of amendments agreed to by the Working Group.
We are witnessing some sort of cover-up, either voluntarily or not, of the violation of Article 55(2) by leaders and supra-national bodies that will make laws for the rest of the world. Governments subsequently did not raise eyebrows at the WHO’s recent unfounded claims that it had fulfilled the requirements of Article 55(2) by circulating a compilation of 308 proposed amendments in November 2022 – those that have been largely modified or deleted through multiple rounds of negotiations. These claims must be rejected since, as previously demonstrated, Article 55(2) requires the final text to be ready four months ahead of the WHA vote.
The whole IHR amendment process has since become a theatre. The negotiations on a draft pandemic agreement and the IHR draft amendments are probably the most closely watched intergovernmental processes ever. Worried by a future dictated by unelected health bureaucrats to restrain private and business activities without oversight and accountability, the public have made noise and reported and informed their elected representatives about their dismay. For example, this open letter has garnered more than 14,000 online signatures from concerned citizens around the world. Scrapping the four-month period will not only prevent governments from properly reviewing the text before signing up, but also means the public will have less or no time at all to manifest their concerns and opposition.
It is truly shameful that WHO and the WGIHR agreed to disregard Article 55(2) when this could have been an opportunity to demonstrate their seriousness. Internal egos and external pressures probably drive them to be seen as tireless pandemic fighters, despite the catastrophic COVID-19 response. Regardless, the whole world can now see a mockery by intergovernmental bodies ignoring their own rules. What is left of international rule of law?
Have governments realised that they have been misled by the repetitive messages from the G20, WHO and World Bank that there would be more harmful pandemics to come and that the world urgently needs new pandemic agreements? If they return to their senses, there may still be time for them to use Article 56(5) IHR to raise disagreement with the WHO’s interpretation of Article 55(2) at the coming WHA, demanding a deferral of the vote until legal requirements are fulfilled.
Article 56 Settlement of disputes
5. In the event of a dispute between WHO and one or more States Parties concerning the interpretation or application of these Regulations, the matter shall be submitted to the Health Assembly.
If they fail, their only appropriate option will be to massively vote against both pandemic texts at the 77th WHA.
Will there still be hope for the rule of law to apply in international forums?
Dr. Thi Thuy Van Dinh (LLM, PhD) worked on international law in the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Subsequently, she managed multilateral organisation partnerships for Intellectual Ventures Global Good Fund and led environmental health technology development efforts for low-resource settings.
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.
As I have stated on DS numerous times, ‘legally binding’ as per the Pandemic Preparedness Treaty and International Health Regulations is a complete nonsense / fiction. There is no such thing, it is complete garbage. If something doesn’t suit we must walk away if we are being polite or simply ignore if we wish to be rude. Clearly the WHO have decided on the latter course.
This would be funny if it wasn’t so serious.
And another thing – Andrew Bridgen recently raised the matter of a formal debate in Parliament concerning the Pandemic Preparedness Treaty and the International Health Regulations. The chief lickspittle of the day – I can’t remember the nonentities name – refused the request for a parliamentary debate.
Democracy in action eh?
Not that our parliamentary pygmies would have raised any objections, they simply vote as instructed.
MP is a job and people can only work in this job if whoever controls the party they happen belong to agrees to let them stand as party candidates as the majority of the people have been fooled into believing they’d vote for prime minister despite this isn’t the case. Hence, most MPs could be replaced by voting robots remote-controlled by party leaders. Party leaders constantly need money which has to be donated by sufficiently rich people. Rich people have political agendas, usually, agenda designed to make themselves even richer and/or to get rid of competitors. Without some fundamental reforms, the UK is thus, like all other so-called western democracies, a more-or-less covert plutocracy where principally anything is for sale to the highest bidder. As such reforms would need support of the party leaders who created (incrementally) the existing system, this is really unlikely to happen.
A strong monarch who’s actually willing to govern instead of just being a very well-funded tourist attraction could help here. But Charles III. wouldn’t be capable of governing a lettuce and his sons don’t seem much more promising, either.
There is no such thing as international law. Just treaties between souvereign states these adhere to or don’t. The WHO redefined pandemic to exclude a requirement for a large number of deaths so that it could declare COVID a pandemic. So, why wouldn’t they continue to change their own rules as they see fit? There’s no institution which could hold it to account for this as there’s no independent court of international law by whose jurisdiction the UN would be formally bound and no government ready to enforce the judgements of this court by violence.
You have taken the words right out of my keyboard! The only law that is relevant to individuals is national law, specifically in the way that it impacts on the citizens of individual nation’s population, either by interpretation or implementation. “Implementation” includes police or their vigilante friends harassing me in the streets and supermarket aisles, or various invisible town hall non-entities tying me up in bureaucratic, authoritarian and legalistic red tape in their attempts to implement their own agenda rather than enforce my rights; interpretation includes judges pretending to make reasonable and unbiassed interpretations of the law according the facts of the case as far as they be ascertained and supposedly without favouring either the state or the individual. International treaties are so far removed from day to day life that the individual citizen can hardly spot the connection. When Karen shouts at me for not wearing my mask in Aisle 42 neither of us have any knowledge of any treaty involving the UK which makes WHO “Recommendation” 3.1415926 legally enforceable by Karen. All we have to go while arguing next to the toilet roll and pasta queues, if anything, is some vague memory of a television report of B-list politicians formally signing a document years ago which we are told assures the safety and well-being of The Planet and Every Lifeform Thereon, especially polar bears and windfarm billionaires. In any case, in some jurisdictions (the US???) treaties are seldom even incorporated into law, as that would require the acceptance by some high authority (e.g. the US Senate) which seldom incorporate treaties into law, and frequently just ignore them if they are inconvenient.
But all a proper government would need to do is withdraw funding and ignore the WHOs demands. But not likely with the uniparty!
We need to leave the UN, the WHO, the EU HRA, even NATO.
Put it up to a referendum. I hear so much about our ‘thriving democracy’ and ‘our values’ whatever the f& they might be.
Put it all on the table for a vote. 60% (same as for Brexit, the real # that is), will vote to walk away, defund and burn.
The WHO et al are useless globalist parasites. Defund. Burn.
And Tedros is a suspected terrorist.
Off-T.
Just found this in the Comments over at TCW. Hat tip Michael.
“John O’Looney, the UK undertaker who broke the news of fibrous white “calamari” clots found by embalmers in the veins and arteries of deceased Covid “vaccine” recipients, has come up with another disturbing disclosure.
In a YouTube interview with broadcaster Jim Ferguson, he claims to have incontrovertible evidence – including reams of live video footage – that of UN army of migrants is being recruited and trained by UK police and military to supervise our “vaccine” rollout of any future pandemic.
Having jabs against avian flu, or whatever the new threat proves to be, will almost certainly be declared mandatory if the WHO becomes global public health dictator via the proposed Pandemic Preparedness Treaty, due to go live later this month.
Such a clear threat to our basic human right to decline any medical treatment we so choose is a far more valid reason for refusing to sign up than the government’s already declared reservations about having to divert a percentage of our vaccine stock to poorer nations.
We must say a firm NO to this egregious, legally-binding legislation – while we still can.”
Something I have posted about regularly here on DS.
Hux I’m with you on this , it’s the main thing on my mind because you & I know that if the WHO ( I hate writing those initials btw ) gets its way the 23/3/20 will seem utopian compared to the chaos that will be unleashed very quickly by this pathetic unelected bunch of charlatans which was shown in the HOP when the minister wouldn’t commit to a vote by MP,s which might veto the Tedros treaty !! Dr John Campbell is all over it atm ! We are poised on a knife edge !!!…
That John O’L stuff about Black Watch training up migrants is really old – I heard/saw it over a year (or more?) ago. That doesn’t make it untrue, of course, but why are TCW (and White Rose too) only coming across it now?
In any case, it’s not really relevant here (is it?) as I don’t think we’re going to get any choice in the matter!
I believe it very likely that we’re headed in a dark direction and only turning back to God will save us. Since this appears unlikely to happen any time soon, we are doomed! In God I trust!
That’s one of the many The government wants to kill you! stories the so-called American right keeps circulating on the internet in order to influence US elections. But the majority of immigrants to the UK are Muslims or Hindus and both have their own agenda (or rather, their leaders have) and hence, it’s a bad fit for Britain.
I’m not quite sure how your reply fits with what I was saying. I know the migrants to this country are very largely Muslims (with a few Hindus, Ukrainians and others thrown in for good measure).
They’re not very likely to beome part of a secret UN army to force vaccines onto the population. They’d probably prefer forcing sharia law onto it which is not a UN agenda.
I agree that the migrant ‘army’ may not be there for vaccine enforcement and I agree that potentially it may be to force sharia law on us – a la Miri AF (do you read her?).
Looking forward to President’s Trump election. The WHO will be defunded with immediate effect.
Trumpt might halt US funding of the WHO but that won’t stop his political opponents from channeling more German money into it to replace this.