U.S. Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) and his colleagues introduced the No WHO Pandemic Preparedness Treaty Without Senate Approval Act.
This legislation would require any convention or agreement resulting from the work of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) intergovernmental negotiating body be deemed a treaty, requiring the advice and consent of a supermajority of the Senate.
The legislation comes as the WHO continues to move the pandemic treaty process forward and is expected to formally present a draft to member states.
After the Biden Administration’s failed COVID-19 response and the WHO’s mismanagement of the pandemic, Americans remain skeptical of continuing infringements on personal liberties and freedoms.
Thelegislationwouldprovide more transparency in WHO agreements and a constitutional check on the administration.
“The World Health Organization should never have a say in how America handles a response to any crisis, health or otherwise,” said Senator Tillis.
“This legislation makes that clear to the Biden Administration and WHO bureaucrats who have continuously refused to hold Communist China accountable for its role in covering up and exacerbating the COVID-19 pandemic.”
U.S. Rep. Jodey Arrington also spoke up on WHO possibly stepping on the U.S. Constitution and Americans rights with the new pandemic treaty: “I will fight any attempt to surrender our sovereignty and cede regulatory power over the United States through a treaty, agreement, or arrangement negotiated by the Biden Administration or any Administration,” said Rep. Arrington. “I share my constituents’ deep distrust of the World Health Organization as a result of their failure to effectively address the pandemic and their potential complicity with China’s Covid cover-up.”
In July 2022, INB members agreed that a new international instrument on pandemic prevention should be legally binding and any final decision on the new instrument will be made by the World Health Assembly under Article 19 of WHO Constitution.
As with all international instruments, governments themselves will determine actions under the accord while considering their own national laws and regulations.
The INB process is broad and open to all 194 WHO Member States, as well as relevant stakeholders from around the world, including UN Agencies, intergovernmental organizations and non-State actors in official relations with WHO.
WHO (is the directing and coordinatingauthorityforhealth within the United Nations system. It is responsible for providing leadership on global health matters, shaping the health research agenda, setting norms and standards, articulating evidence-based policy options, providing technical support to countries and monitoring and assessing health trends.
The World Health Assembly, the decision-making body of WHO, can adopt a legally binding instrument under both articles of the WHO constitution. But some felt that article 19 is more comprehensive, as it allows the WHA to adopt agreements and treaties on any matter within WHO’s competence and can include measures beyond the scope of article 21.
Only Russia stated a preference for nonlegal binding recommendations under article 23 of the constitution.
When the World Health Assembly agreed to establish the INB during its special session in December 2021, they agreed for it to work on a pandemic instrument “with a view to adoption under Article 19, or under other provisions of the WHO Constitution as may be deemed appropriate by the INB.”
“In other words, there is virtually no issue relating to health that an Article 19 treaty cannot cover. This gives the INB wide scope to address not just outbreak detection and response but also wider issues such as zoonotic leaps from animals to humans, antimicrobial resistance, and even climate change as a health threat,” Lawrence Gostin, a professor at Georgetown University and founding O’Neill chair in global health law.
Under article 21, the WHA can adopt regulations, such as the International Health Regulations, which govern how WHO and member states operate during a health emergency such as COVID19. It has limitations though in that international binding instruments under this article can only be adopted under five areas, including sanitation and quarantine, disease nomenclature, diagnostic procedures, and standards for safety and efficacy as well as advertising and labeling of drugs and other medical products.
Early in the week, member states also weighed in on a working draft of a potential pandemic instrument. There were a lot of suggestions on what to change, what else to include, and what requires clarifications, including what goes in the IHR — a legally binding instrument governing the way WHO and countries function during health emergencies — and in a potential pandemic instrument. Member states emphasized the need to make sure there’s no duplication and overlap between the two. They also asked for clarity on who would be responsible for implementing the different obligations set out in the draft.
While many states want a legally binding treaty, even more are quite concerned that strong binding standards would violate their national sovereignty, and they are reluctant to sign on to anything that is too prescriptive.