WHO floats international pandemic treaty

One year ago, 26 heads-of-state penned a letter published on the World Health Organization (WHO) website, calling upon all nations to “work together towards a new international treaty for pandemic preparedness and response.

“[The treaty] would be rooted in the constitution of the World Health Organization. . . . Existing global health instruments, especially the International Health Regulations, would underpin such a treaty, ensuring a firm and tested foundation on which we can build and improve.

“To achieve this, we will work with Heads of State and governments globally and all stakeholders, including civil society and the private sector.”

At the same time the WHO published this call to action, an article published in the journal on geopolitics and international relations Great Game India stated, “A whistleblower from the WHO, Dr. Astrid Stuckelberger in a stunning confession . . . said the rules under which countries work with WHO virtually put WHO in charge of all rules and formal edicts and announcements.”

This charge is no conspiracy theory.  It is firmly based in the International Health Regulations which is legally binding on the WHO’s member states. 

“The International Health Regulations (2005), or IHR (2005), represents a binding international legal agreement involving 196 countries across the globe, including all the Member States of WHO.”

This legally binding treaty fits well with the agenda of the World Economic Forum (WEF) for global governance.

As Frontline News reported, “There is one overriding agenda that permeates the World Economic Forum. . . . That agenda is global governance.  Global governance is the World Economic Forum’s panacea for every issue and challenge that we face.”

Global governance manifests in every program and initiative of the WEF.  The headline of an article published on the WEF website reads, “More, not less, multilateralism is needed to fight the coronavirus pandemic”.

In the article synopsis we find, “The recent rise in populism has threatened the spirit of international co-operation.  International co-operation and multilateralism are our best weapon in the fight against coronavirus and other global threats, such as climate change.”

Superficially, platitudes like these, sound nice.  Once they are analyzed, though, they start sounding more ominous. 

What do the authors of this article mean by international cooperation?  Are they referring to doctors sharing their treatments with other doctors in a worldwide network?  This would be an efficient way of sharing the results of effective treatments and weeding out the ones that don’t work.  This would save lives. 

Alas, the authors of this article do not mean this.  International cooperation in organizations such as the WHO and WEF is a euphemism for more centralized control.  Their goal is for a central authority such as the WHO to formulate policies and for every member state to toe the line for the “public good”.

The article continues, “We need to reinforce the institutions and mechanisms that support us working together, reform or eliminate those that don’t, and create those we need.

“This crisis reminds us of the importance of international unity. . . . International co-operation and multilateralism are our best weapon in this fight . . . The isolation politics of the past decade have been damaging. We now have the choice to seize upon the opportunity of this crisis to strengthen and rebuild multilateralism.”

Arancha González, former Executive Director of the International Trade Center and Spain’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, argues that international cooperation is the only way to successfully tackle the coronavirus pandemic.

She writes, “…new institutional arrangements should be based on a revitalized and reformed World Health Organization, with wider mandates and greater enforcement authority. 

“A global health framework with teeth must also be agile enough to cover the whole chain of public-health interventions, from scientific research and early warning to policy formulation, implementation, and evaluation. That’s why, aside from necessary reforms of the WHO’s decision-making process and its Emergency Committee, the potential of other international platforms and organizations to contribute to the global health system we need should not be overlooked.

“For example, the G20 and the G7 can help marshal the necessary political will. The World Bank and other regional development banks are uniquely well positioned to mobilize resources toward health-care reform.”

Translated into plain English, this means that the World Bank will use its significant financial resources to pressure countries into obeying the WHO.

“Overall, we need to advance a “one health approach” that brings together the environmental, economic, social, and security dimensions of public health.”

A “one health approach” is exactly what we do not need.

If the COVID-19 pandemic has shown us anything it is that local doctors practicing medicine the traditional way and communicating with one another, were much more effective in keeping people out of hospitals and in preventing deaths than the dictates of national and international organizations such as the WHO, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA). 

We need to give power back to local doctors.  Allow them to practice medicine instead forcing them to follow some centralized agency’s guidelines.