Human history is a story of forgotten lessons. Despite the catastrophic collapse of European democracy in the 1930s, it appears that the tale of the twentieth century – in which citizens, cowed by existential threats, acquiesced in the rejection of liberty and truth in favour of obedience and propaganda, whilst allowing despotic leaders to seize ever more absolutist powers – is perilously close to being forgotten.
Nowhere is this more evident than in relation to the apparent nonchalance which has greeted two international legal agreements currently working their way through the World Health Organisation: a new pandemic treaty, and amendments to the 2005 International Health Regulations, both due to be put before the governing body of the WHO, the World Health Assembly, in May next year.
As concerned scholars and jurists have detailed, these agreements threaten to fundamentally reshape the relationship between the WHO, national governments, and individuals.
They would hardwire into international law a top-down supranational approach to public health in which the WHO, acting in some cases via the sole discretion of one individual, its Director General (DG), would be empowered to impose sweeping, legally binding directions on member states and their citizens, ranging from mandating financial contributions by individual states; to requiring the manufacture and international sharing of vaccines and other health products; to requiring the surrender of intellectual property rights; overriding national safety approval processes for vaccines, gene-based therapies, medical devices and diagnostics; and imposing national, regional and global quarantines preventing citizens from traveling and mandating medical examinations and treatments.
A global system for digital ‘health certificates’ for verification of vaccine status or test results would be routinised, and a bio-surveillance network whose purpose would be to identify viruses and variants of concern – and to monitor national compliance with WHO policy directives in the event of them – would be embedded and expanded.
For any of these sweeping powers to be invoked, there would be no requirement for an “actual” health emergency in which people are suffering measurable harm; instead it would be sufficient for the DG, acting on his or her discretion, to have identified the mere “potential” for such an event.
It is hard to overstate the impact of these proposals on Member States’ sovereignty, individual human rights, foundational principles of medical ethics, and child welfare. As currently drafted, these proposals would deny UK sovereignty and governmental autonomy over health and social policies and, through the indirect impacts of forced lockdowns and quarantines and because each Member State would be required to commit a staggering minimum of 5 percent of national health budgets and an as yet unspecified percentage of GDP towards the WHO’s pandemic prevention and response, also over critical aspects of economic policy.
The proposed new powers would cut across not only the Universal Declaration of Human Rights but also the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. They would signal a new watershed in our understanding of cornerstone human rights: an express amendment to the IHR deletes language currently reading “[t]he implementation of these Regulations shall be with full respect for the dignity, human rights and fundamental freedoms of persons” to replace it with a nebulous confirmation that “[t]he implementation of these Regulations shall be based on the principles of equity, inclusivity, coherence…”
WHO is forging ahead with plans to implement a Global Digital Health Certificate
The proposed amendments to the International Health Regulations (“IHR”) are a completely different set of proposals to the “Pandemic Treaty” that will not need to be signed by any President or Prime Minister, nor would the proposed amendments require the advice and consent of the Senate or Parliament.
Amendments to the IHR were adopted in 2022 without Senate/Parliament confirmation. The amendments that are currently being proposed could easily be adopted in the same manner in either May 2023 or 2024.
Among the 307 amendments to the IHR proposed by 94 member nations of the World Health Organisation (“WHO”) are several that would seek to implement a Global Digital Health Certificate.
The World Health Assembly (“WHA”) meets from 21 to 30 May 2023. In preparation for this meeting, they have been uploading documents. These documents include a progress report referred to as ‘Report O’. This report states that they going to implement a Global Digital Health certification network.
30. The Secretariat has also been exploring options for the digitalisation of the International Certificate for Vaccination or Prophylaxis, particularly in the context of the measures implemented in relation to covid-19 pandemic, and will continue to explore options for interoperability platforms for the verification of validity of such digital certificates. As referred to in document A76/37 (Report O), WHO is working with partners to establish a Global Digital Health Certification Network, which is intended to enable Member States to verify the authenticity of vaccination certificates issued under International Health Regulations (2005), as well as other health documents. [Emphasis our own.]
Implementation of the International Health Regulations (2005), World Health Organisation, 21 April 2023, page 7
“They say, ‘Oh well, it’s on a voluntary basis’. [But] what they’ve been doing is building the infrastructure – if you could imagine the infrastructure needed to be able to track and trace everybody on the planet, it’s a large systems task,” James Roguski told Steve Bannon’s War Room. “Building these systems – it takes time, it takes money.” This perhaps is an indication they don’t really intend for it to be “voluntary” for long.
Also, considering the context that the Indonesian Health Minister, Budi Gunadi Sadikin, referred to the Global Digital Health Certification at the B20 Summit last year, it seems unlikely the intention for it is to be on a “voluntary basis” despite what they claim.
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