Join the World Council for Health in the Parliamentary gallery and Parliament Square, London on 18th December at 4.30 pm for a parliamentary debate on the proposed amendments to the International Health Regulations (2005).
In response to a petition created by Dr Tess Lawrie, co-founder and Steering Committee member of the World Council for Health (WCH), the UK Petitions Committee has scheduled a debate on the proposed amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR) for Monday 18 December at 4.30 pm.
People around the world are mobilizing to issue rejection letters and indicate reservations. Now is the time for all nations to reject this dangerous precedent in the strongest terms. The proposed IHR amendments pose serious questions regarding their impact on national sovereignty during global health emergencies.
We are calling on all concerned UK citizens to join us in London on Monday 18 December at 4.30 pm either in the Parliamentary gallery or in Parliament Square. We also encourage all UK citizens to alert their MPs to this important debate and urge them to attend.
In addition, we urge members of the international community to view this important debate live on parliamentlive.tv. We invite the international community to alert and inform their political representatives by providing them with the debate viewing link in addition to our Policy Brief addressing the proposed IHR amendments and Pandemic Treaty. A summary of the Policy Brief is available in 19 languages.
Event Details:
Monday 18 December at 4.30 pm
Debate viewing: Westminster Hall
Outdoor gathering: Parliament Square, London, SW1P 3BD
Online viewing: parliamentlive.tv/commons
A transcript will be available here: hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2023-12-18
About the IHR Amendments and the Pandemic Treaty
Two complementary instruments of international law are currently being negotiated by the World Health Organization (WHO), its member states, and private stakeholders in relation with the supranational body for adoption by the World Health Assembly in May 2024.
The IHR amendments, if approved, would unduly enhance the powers of the WHO and thus the special interests that exert significant influence over the organization vis-à-vis states and non-state actors—raising serious questions with regard to state sovereignty and the future of governance.
Some amendments represent a framework for the illegitimate exercise of global governmental power without a popular accord, constitutional control mechanisms, or accountability. As such, they create a dangerous precedent if passed.
The proposed pandemic treaty, if adopted, would create a new, cost-intensive supranational bureaucracy and impose an ideological framework under which to operate in matters of global health. This ideological framework includes support for gain-of-function research with pandemic potential pathogens (PPPs) and encourages a globally coordinated effort to counter dissent from the official WHO line. Melissa Fleming, Deputy Secretary-General of the UN, stated the following belief at a 2022 World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, “We own the science and we think that the world should know it.”
The WCH policy expert group issues a stark warning that any undue concentration of power in the hands of a few or a supranational body without a popular mandate, accountability, and constitutional control mechanisms to restrain it, by nature, leads to abuse of power, undermines and compromises democratic processes, corrupts science, curtails choice, suffocates competing solutions, thereby reducing quality and innovation, and enables control over the flow of information as well as stifling of dissent.
The WCH expert group also points to the fact that the WHO is a compromised organization that only controls about a quarter of its budget. The rest are earmarked contributions from a few high-income states and powerful private interest groups. Handing more power to the WHO equals handing more, not less power to the special national and corporate interests that have impeded effective responses to global health emergencies in the past.
The proposed amendments to the IHR and the WHO pandemic treaty as a whole further raise serious questions—with relevance beyond the field of public health—for societies as well as leaders to address. These questions pertain to the future of governance (global vs. democratic), the increasing concentration of power in the hands of the unelected, unaccountable few, the future of gain-of-function research of concern, the future of free speech and the right to dissent, the future of the right to privacy, the amount of digital surveillance and private data mining capabilities societies are willing to cede to profit- and interest-driven actors that view them as “hackable animals,” the future of the essential independent doctor-patient relationship, the control over the production of and access to medical treatments and the integrity of regulatory processes.
The answers to these questions will have significant consequences for the everyday lives and well-being of people as well as the nature and structure of societies.
Our in-depth policy brief showcases the most important proposed amendments to the IHR as well as central parts of the pandemic treaty (WHO CA+) draft. It explains why they differ from previous approaches to global public health in a significant way and require a swift, effective, and robust response. At the same time, legislative and educational measures are recommended via the policy brief to strengthen public health and to achieve better preparedness, efficient international collaboration and sharing with regards to global health emergencies while avoiding monopolization and ensuring the robustness of democratic ideals in times of crisis.
Dr Tess Lawrie’s petition reads:
We are concerned that Parliament has not discussed and will not have a say on the 307 proposed amendments to the International Health Regulations, AND the amendments to 5 Articles of the IHR that were ADOPTED by the 75th World Health Assembly on 27 May 2022.
The amendments that were adopted on 27 May 2022 have not been debated in or voted on by Parliament. The UK has the authority to reject them under Article 61 of the IHR, but any such rejection must be within 18 months of their adoption.
Parliament must be given the opportunity to vote on whether to reject the amendments that have already been adopted, and also the 307 proposed amendments that are currently being negotiated by the UK delegates to the 76th World Health Assembly. The UK has not proposed any of the 307 amendments.
MORE INFORMATION
Petition: Hold a parliamentary vote on whether to reject amendments to the IHR 2005:
petition.parliament.uk/petitions/635904
WCH Policy Brief on the proposed amendments to the IHR and Pandemic Treaty—‘Rejecting Monopoly Power Over Global Public Health’:
https://www.worldcouncilforhealth.org/policy-briefs/
WCH Policy Brief Summary and translations:
worldcouncilforhealth.org/policy-briefs/
WCH Statement: Countries Around the World Begin to Reject the WHO as Deadline Looms:
worldcouncilforhealth.org/reject-the-who/
WCH Campaign to Exit the WHO:
worldcouncilforhealth.org/exit-the-who/
