Senators oppose Biden transfering pandemic powers to WHO

Senator Ron Johnson and 16 colleagues have introduced a bill to thwart Joe Biden's plans to subordinate US law to the World Health Organization (WHO), a United Nations agency. Biden is planning on bypassing the Senate and signing a pandemic treaty allowing the WHO to dictate US public health policy. 

Global governance roadblock

The bill, entitled, “No WHO Pandemic Preparedness Treaty Without Senate Approval Act,” lays out the WHO's incompetence and America's distrust of the world body before deeming all international pandemic agreements to be treaties under the Constitution, thus requiring ratification by a supermajority or ⅔ of the Senate.

President Trump’s May 18 letter [to the WHO Director-General] cited numerous instances of WHO mismanagement of the COVID–19 pandemic . . . 

[A] significant segment of the American public is deeply skeptical of the World Health Organization, its leadership, and its independence from the pernicious political influence of certain member states, including the People’s Republic of China . . .

[A]ny convention, agreement, or other international instrument on pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response reached by the World Health Assembly pursuant to the recommendations, report, or work of the International Negotiating Body established by the second special session of the World Health Assembly is deemed to be a treaty that is subject to the requirements of article II, section 2 clause 2 of the Constitution of the United States, which requires the advice and consent of the Senate, with two-thirds of Senators concurring.

Global medical police state . . .

The senators are responding to grave fears of how the pandemic treaty would affect human freedom. The Epoch Times quoted David Bell, a public health physician and former WHO staffer specializing in epidemic policy, on the potential repercussions of joining the treaty.

They want to see a centralized, vaccine-and-medication-based response, and a very restrictive response in terms of controlling populations. They get to decide what is a health emergency, and they are putting in place a surveillance mechanism that will ensure that there are potential emergencies to declare.

The news outlet goes on to quote Dr. Meryl Nass on how this would affect medical freedom. 

If these rules go through as currently drafted, I, as a doctor, will be told what I am allowed to give a patient and what I am prohibited from giving a patient, whenever the WHO declares a public health emergency. So they can tell you you’re getting remdesivir, but you can’t have hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin. What they’re also saying is they believe in equity, which means everybody in the world gets vaccinated, whether or not you need it, whether or not you’re already immune.

The outlet also includes the reaction of University of Illinois College of Law international law Professor Francis Boyle.

Both [initiatives] are fatally dangerous. Either one or both would set up a worldwide medical police state under the control of the WHO, and in particular WHO Director-General Tedros. If either one or both of these go through, Tedros or his successor will be able to issue orders that will go all the way down the pipe to your primary care physicians.” [Emphasis added].

With a Marxist in charge

Putting Tedros in charge of medical decisions for every person in the world is particularly ominous. Dr. Peter Breggin, a clinical psychopharmacologist, describes his troubling background. 

Director-General . . . Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, commonly known as Tedros . . . the first non-physician director-general of WHO, is an extremely controversial Marxist activist and politician from Ethiopia installed by the Chinese Communist Party . . . [Emphasis added].

The proposed regulations, in combination with existing ones, allow action to be taken by WHO, “If the Director-General considers, based on an assessment under these Regulations, that a potential or actual public health emergency of international concern is occurring…” (Article 12.2). That is, Tedros need only “consider” that a “potential or actual” risk is occurring. . . 

As we noted in an earlier Frontline News piece, Tedros is not just an academic Marxist. 

Before setting up shop at WHO, he played a leading role in the murderous Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) in his native Ethiopia. This Marxist terror organization declared war on other ethnic groups. Tedros served as a top member of TPLF’s Politburo Central Committee.

Will it succeed?

Professor Boyle is not optimistic that Congressional legislation can thwart Biden's order, explaining that the WHO artfully crafted its pandemic treaty to avoid the need for Senate ratification. 

Whoever drafted this clause knew as much about U.S. constitutional law and international law as I did, and deliberately drafted it to circumvent the power of the Senate to give its advice and consent to treaties, to provisionally bring it into force immediately upon signature. The Biden administration will take the position that this is an international executive agreement that the president can conclude of his own accord without approval by Congress and is binding on the United States of America, including all state and local democratically elected officials, governors, attorney generals, and health officials.

Boyle summed up his pessimistic view of the new bill: “With all due respect to the sponsoring senators, that will not do the trick.” 

The Epoch Times, in a separate piece, elaborated on the legal basis for Biden to bypass Congress.

The U.S. Supreme Court has on several occasions supported the notion that these executive agreements constitute federal law and supersede state laws and regulations. This includes State of Missouri v. Holland, which ruled that treaties supersede state laws, and United States v. Belmont, which ruled that executive agreements without Senate consent are legally binding on Americans. Under the U.S. Constitution, health policy falls under state jurisdiction, but the WHO pandemic accord may be a way to bring health policy under the jurisdiction of the federal government, once the WHO declares a pandemic.

Senator Johnson, in recognition of these challenges, included in his bill a quote from the Department of State’s Foreign Affairs Manual stating the constitutional requirement for viewing some international agreements as treaties requiring Senate approval versus executive agreements which do not.

[When] determining whether any international agreement should be brought into force as a treaty or as an international agreement other than a treaty, the utmost care is to be exercised to avoid any invasion or compromise of the constitutional powers of the President, the Senate, and the Congress as a whole.’

The bill even lists the various criteria included in that manual for considering an agreement to be a treaty. 

Follow the money

Boyle remains unconvinced that a special bill is the solution. What would “do the trick?” Controlling the purse strings, according to The Epoch Times. 

Congress instead should immediately withhold its yearly contributions to the WHO and take the United States out of the organization.

Currently, the United States is the largest contributor to the WHO’s $6.72 billion budget, of which $1.25 billion is for “health emergencies.” The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is the second largest donor to the WHO, contributing 9 percent of its budget in 2021; China is the third.