Opponents of the proposed international pandemic treaty could breathe a sigh of relief this week after the World Health Organization-coordinated push for the pact failed to reach the required consensus among WHO member states ahead of Monday’s World Health Assembly in Geneva.
“We are not where we hoped we would be when we started this process,” WHO negotiating board co-chair Roland Driece said on Friday.
“The world still needs a pandemic treaty. Many of the challenges that caused the serious impact during COVID-19 still exist,” WHO chief Tedros Ghebreyesus said Friday, insisted that the setback was “not a failure.”
“We will try everything – believing that anything is possible –and make this happen because the world still needs a pandemic treaty,” he said.
WHO officials didn’t elaborate on why a consensus couldn’t be reached ahead of the deadline. However, observers believe it may be related to disagreements between governments regarding the sharing of information about emerging pathogens, the means to defeat them, and whether the agreement should be binding or non-binding.
The draft treaty saw divisions emerge among WHO members regarding the extent of powers to be given to the global health authority to fight emerging global health emergencies, with European countries calling for “legally binding” measures meting out penalties for members who do not comply.
Other countries, including India, Brazil and Russia, as well as the United States, expressed opposition to a legally binding treaty, with Republican governors in the US lobbying strongly against it, saying they didn’t want to give the WHO overarching powers if another pandemic hit.
“If adopted, these agreements would seek to elevate the WHO from an advisory body to a global authority in public health,” a letter sent to President Biden this week by two dozen governors from Republican states said. “Under the proposed amendments and treaty, the WHO’s Director-General would supposedly gain unilateral power to declare a ‘public health emergency of international concern’ in member nations, extending beyond pandemics to include a range of perceived emergencies.”
“Additional concerns arise regarding the establishment of a global surveillance infrastructure and requirements for member states to censor speech related to public health, potentially facilitating the proliferation of biological weapons,” the letter added. “We are committed to resisting any attempts to transfer authority to the WHO over public policy affecting our citizens or any efforts by the WHO to assert such authority over them.”
Media ‘fact checkers’ assured that even a legally-binding WHO pandemic treaty would not grant the international body control over US policy during a pandemic, and that the treaty would be limited to “broad recommendations related to international cooperation on pandemic preparedness, preparation and response.”