Critics of WHO proposals on pandemic treaty point to possible dangers

Senator Sharon Keoghan yesterday hosted a series of events to highlight issues around the World Health Organisation Pandemic Treaty.

The main focus of the points made at the press conference in Buswells was the manner in which the WHO Treaty is likely to impact on the lives of citizens in individual states. 

The Treaty itself has its origins in the Covid panic when, in December 2021, member states gathered at the World Health Assembly and agreed to allow the WHO to draft an agreement setting out how any future pandemic would be dealt with.

That agreement is set to be presented to another world assembly in May this year. This has led critics to argue that the Treaty will override national sovereignty and basically force all states to adopt whatever is finally agreed – though the WHO denies sovereignty will not be respected. 

While there are differing views on this, critics point to the manner in which each member state of the EU adopted the WHO-inspired vaccine passport once that was decided upon by the European Council and passed by the European Parliament.

That was approved by a majority of 5:1, but it raises the question as to what would happen if an individual member state or states – say 4 or 5 of the 26  EU members –  decided not to adopt such a measure. Could the Council then insist upon them adopting it against their wishes as an EU directive?

That was the question raised by the German AfD MEP Christine Anderson at the conference. She claimed that there could be a possibility that the European Council could decide to approve the WHO Treaty and therefore require it to be implemented across all of the member states.

Anderson admitted that such powers do not currently devolve to the Council or the Commission but argued the original proposals for the “European constitution” that eventually became Lisbon were clearly designed to move in that direction. 

Others have argued that this would require a referendum although, as former Councillor Richard Greene noted in his contribution from the floor, even were such a referendum to take place there is no guarantee that it would be the end of things – people ought to recall what happened when both the first Lisbon and Nice Treaty referendums to approve were defeated, but the EU and the Irish state insisted on putting them to another vote following amendments. 

Some critics of the proposed WHO treaty also argue that a referendum would be required if the proposal was to become part of Irish legislation. 

Their claim is based on the 1987 landmark judgment in the case taken by the late Ray Crotty which found that the Single European Act would lead to a delegation of sovereignty and was therefore required to be put to the decision of the electorate in a referendum. However, the SEA was passed by referendum, and subsequent treaties, in particular the Lisbon Treaty, ceded considerable sovereignty to the EU, so the Crotty judgment may not be a barrier to adoption of the WHO proposal. 

WHO Pandemic Treaty
https://t.co/1TIatiQgZb

— Senator Sharon Keogan (@SenatorKeogan) February 6, 2024

There are clearly issues that require to be debated, whatever one’s view of the Treaty or indeed of the arguments being put against it. It is the lack of debate that creates the environment in which there is suspicion of anything with an official stamp of approval.  

An indication, perhaps, of the likelihood that such a debate is little likely to be given much public prominence is that very few TDs and Senators or members of their staff appear to have turned up for the briefing that was hosted by Senator Sharon Keogan in the AV Room of Leinster House. 

In fact, Paul Murphy TD and Louise O’Reilly of Sinn Feín were angered that Senator Keogan had invited Christine Anderson to the Oireachtas, with Murphy describing her invitation as “outrageous” and O’Reilly expressing concern at “the use of Dáil facilities to promote far-right ideology”. 

One of the other invited speakers, Dr. Meryl Nass, whose medical license was suspended for a 30-day period during Covid time, spoke about some of the contributory factors in restricting or even censoring debate.  She referred to recent examples where leading figures within the world of academia in the United States have been exposed for various transgressions including plagiarism.  

Dr. Nass claimed that acceptance of restrictions on views that are unacceptable to the establishment has reached the extent where there are specific courses which facilitate what she referred to as the awarding of “degrees in misinformation.”

On a more serious note such restrictions upon debate, as Gript, and only a very few others, reported on during the lockdowns, without doubt prevented proper discussion of the measures that were implemented during that time. States, including our own, are now establishing inquiries into how all of that was handled. 

“The Irish inquiry will certainly be keenly watched to see how much focus will be placed on the unhealthy relationship that was created between the state and the mainstream media.  Gript looked at that in relation to Kinzen, but there is a strong argument that many Irish media outlets failed in their duty to fully inform their readers during the pandemic.

Other speakers at Senator Keogan’s event also mentioned the ongoing failure to properly investigate the origins of Covid-19, and how that might have been manipulated by certain powers. 

As we have noted here previously, the WHO “received considerable and fair criticism for listening guilelessly to whatever the Chinese Government was saying on a daily basis at the early stages, and taking whatever Beijing said at face value.”

And its is true that the draft Treaty “does commit Ireland – and all of the other signatories – to adopting standards and policies that are as yet undefined”,

Meanwhile, the WHO insists that their proposal for a “Pandemic Treaty” will respect the sovereign rights of each county. As with all debates there will be critical views that perhaps strain credibility.  That, however, is not exclusive to the opposition to such proposals, as we well know.  And the debate should nonetheless be had.