The WHO Pandemic Treaty failed. What’s next?

In answer to my question posed in the last column, “Will Canada sign the WHO Pandemic Treaty next week?”, the answer is “no”.

As politicians and bureaucrats jetted into Geneva Switzerland for their week-long meetings at the 77th World Health Assembly, news broke that the World Health Organization (WHO) officials along with negotiators from WHO member countries had failed in their attempts to produce a final Pandemic Treaty document. The significance of this failure was captured in two banners adorning Geneva’s skyline.

WHO officials unfurled a banner to welcome the assembly’s participants: “All for Health, Health for All.”

Protest groups outside the gates of the WHO headquarters hoisted a different sign of welcoming the participants:  “NO to the Pandemic Treaty. STOP the UN Power Grab.”

The assembly meetings serve those committed to a global health agenda by providing both a stage and the space for discussions about how to advance internationally coordinated responses to current and emerging health challenges. A WHO media release explains, “The Health Assembly will feature high-level participation from political leaders and ambassadors, and representatives from civil society and non-State actors, underscoring the global commitment to advancing the public health agenda.” This week, participants are to agree to the WHO’s 2025–2028 strategy that is prepared “to address health-related implications of such megatrends as climate change, ageing, migration, and advances in science and technology.” Participants will also attend a series of “strategic roundtables” with the overriding theme of “Invest in global health – Invest in WHO.”

One of the crowning moments that was to take place at this week’s meetings was the signing of a Pandemic Treaty and an accompanying document that contained key amendments to an International Health Regulations (IHR) document. Neither the treaty nor the regulatory document will be completed and signed this week as a result of an impasse among member states.

Instead of the signing ceremony, WHO officials are guiding the participants through presentations and discussions that will suggest an alternative way forward to an eventual treaty and amended IHR document. With respect to the next steps regarding a global treaty, WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus observed at the assembly’s opening ceremonies, “COVID-19 affected everybody, in many ways, and that is why Member States started a process to develop a pandemic agreement to make the world better prepared for the next pandemic. While great progress was made during these negotiations, there are challenges still to overcome. We need to use the World Health Assembly to re-energize us and finish the job at hand, which is to present the world with a generational pandemic agreement. The world still needs a pandemic treaty.”

Signaling that this initiative is not over, Tedros said, “Of course, we all wish that we had been able to reach a consensus on the agreement in time for this health assembly, and cross the finish line. I remain confident that you still will, because where there is a will, there is a way. I know that there remains among you a common will to get this done.”

WHO officials plan to lead a discussion on the next steps to complete a treaty document during a meeting scheduled for Tuesday, May 24 at 2:30 p.m. Geneva time (that is 8:30 a.m. Ottawa time). This meeting is to be held in public and live streamed here: https://www.who.int/about/accountability/governance/world-health-assembly/seventy-seventh

With respect to the treaty’s accompanying IHR document, WHO officials have produced a document that highlights the consensus attained in the two-years of negotiations on the amendments to the IHR. In a coversheet to the IHR document, WHO officials state, “The text does not represent a completely agreed amendment package, but is intended to provide an overview of the current status and progress of the work of the AGIHR. It contains many amendments on which agreement has been reached in principle, other texts that are about to be reached agreement, and a few points that require further work to reach a consensus.”

The WHO concludes its overview of this document with the statement, “The Bureau is of the opinion that the working group is on the verge of agreeing on a consensus package of changes to the regulations and that there is a strong will to successfully complete the process.”

Here is that document dated May 20, 2024.

So, what’s next?

A Geneva-based, international health industry publication Health Policy Watch suggests the WHO will push for the assembly participants to approve the IHR document this week, or in forthcoming weeks. Recall that the IHR document establishes the authority, terms, and conditions for a WHO Pandemic Treaty. The latest rendition of the IHR document was signed off by all WHO member states in 2005, so it is recognized as an international set of regulations that countries are committed to in principle and practice.  

Ashley Bloomfield, co-chair of the IHR working group is quoted to have said on the weekend, “We will put forward a draft resolution asking the Assembly to continue the work this week, and hoping that it will be adopted by the Assembly before the week is over.”

If Bloomfield and the WHO get their wish and there is an agreement struck on the IHR document this week, member states would be agreeing to provisions demanding “equity” among member states. This will mean equity for medical supplies including vaccines, as well as greater financial contributions to the WHO from the wealthier of the member states.

Another significant amendment in this document is the fact that each signatory country shall put in place a “National IHR Authority” and “The National IHR Authority shall coordinate the implementation of these Regulations within the jurisdiction of the State Party”. So, even without a treaty, the WHO members are agreeing to implement WHO recommendations for their respective countries.  

U.K. news source, The Telegraph, editorializes that the WHO’s motives are evident in its push to have the IHR amendments agreed to this week. The editorial posits, “The actual point of the treaty: the creation of a new system of pandemic management under the WHO authority and binding under international law. The director general of the WHO, Dr Tedros, can declare the existence of a pandemic. Member states take on an obligation to cooperate with the WHO “to the fullest extent possible”, to share information and “pandemic-related health products”, to establish a supply chain network, and much more – and of course to fund it. This is all new.”

It must be fully appreciated that the WHO leaders and bureaucrats are intent on moving forward with their plans to establish the WHO as the sole international authority during the period of a pandemic (and the authority that can proclaim the start and the duration of a global pandemic).

Director-General Tedros stated publicly in a media conference, “We will try everything — believing that anything is possible — and make this happen because the world still needs a pandemic treaty. Because many of the challenges that caused a serious impact during COVID-19 still exist.”

Tedros observed the WHO is unfazed with the failure to produce a Pandemic Treaty this week, “What matters now is when do we learn from this and how can we reset things, recalibrate things, identify the main challenges, and then move on.”

In a WHO media release, the World Health Assembly co-Chair Roland Driece of the Netherlands states “all WHO Member States remain committed to completing the pandemic agreement process” Driece is also quoted to say, “Clearly there is agreement among governments that the world must forge a new approach to combatting pandemics. The next steps in this essential process will now be guided by the World Health Assembly.”

Here are the three tactical points to consider when watching the WHO officials operate this week…