Yesterday afternoon, at twenty past one, Gript Media received a press release that began as follows:
“Deputy Michael Collins vehemently opposes the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Pandemic Treaty and the corresponding health regulation adjustments. He asserts that these alterations pose substantial threats to Irish sovereignty by endowing the WHO with considerable authority over our national pandemic response policies.”
This is not the first such statement from an independent TD that we have received in recent weeks: Mattie McGrath, Deputy for Tipperary, has been similarly vehement in his opposition. Gript Media’s occasional columnist, David Thunder, has also written at some length about the pandemic treaty on his personal substack, and the treaty itself ranks in the top five things that regular members of the public write to Gript Media about, asking us to cover.
So, what is it? And is the opposition justified?
The benign case – the don’t worry too much about this treaty case – goes something like this:
In the aftermath of the global Covid-19 pandemic, the World Health Organisation realised, even if it did not directly admit that this was the case, that it had significantly underperformed. In particular, the organisation 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. As a result, the World Health Organisation allowed itself to be used, wittingly or unwittingly, as a propaganda vehicle for China. Recall this tweet, from January 14th 2020, just two months before we in Ireland were forced into apparently endless months of lockdown:
Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China🇨🇳. pic.twitter.com/Fnl5P877VG
— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) January 14, 2020
Indeed, in the early stages of the Pandemic, the WHO seemed far more concerned with appeasing China’s political needs than it was in giving the global public truthful information about the nature of the threat. As the council on foreign relations noted:
In contrast to his effusive praise for China, Tedros has been quick to criticize other countries for their responses to the outbreak. He called upon nations not to limit travel with China and warned against the “recrimination or politicization” of the outbreak. Domestic Chinese news coverage prominently features Tedros’ praise of Xi Jinping and criticism of foreign governments.
In the context of this failure, the pandemic treaty might be benignly thought of as an effort to ensure that such failures do not happen again. For example, the rationale of the treaty is set out at the beginning, and explicitly notes that one impetus for its adoption is as follows:
Noting with concern that the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic revealed serious shortcomings in preparedness at national and global levels for the timely and effective prevention and detection of, and response to, health emergencies
When you read through the text of the treaty, much of it is directed at information sharing: States shall tell us the truth about potentially dangerous diseases and do it quickly, is a fair enough layman’s summation. It is all linked above, if you want to read it for yourself.
So, is all opposition overblown and illegitimate? Not at all.
For one thing, the treaty explicitly widens and deepens the authority of the world health organisation in effect, if not in explicit fact. And some of the language is legitimately concerning in terms of civil liberties. For example, section 5.4.a reads as follows:
Each Party shall, in accordance with national context and to the extent necessary, protect human, animal and plant health by implementing science-based actions, including but not limited to: improving infection prevention and control measures; antimicrobial research and development; access to and stewardship of antimicrobials; and harmonization of surveillance, in order to prevent, reduce the risk of, and prepare for, pandemics;
What does “harmonization of surveillance” mean? Well, in the first instance, it does not refer to surveillance of the security camera on every corner variety. It refers instead to population-level health monitoring. But even that should be deeply concerning: Who, after all, is harmonising with whom? Does this mean that China will adapt Irish population level health surveillance, or does it mean – as is arguably far more likely – that Ireland might be encouraged to move in the direction of Chinese style population health surveillance? That’s a reasonable question, and one that is not answered in the text. In China, for example, we saw during the pandemic compulsory mass testing of members of the public, and their involuntary detention if they returned a positive covid test. Does this text move the rest of the world in that direction? Potentially it might.
At minimum, it’s a fair question to ask: Before Ireland signs up to global health surveillance standards, shouldn’t we know what those standards actually are, and how they might impact the civil liberties and rights of Irish people? The answer to that question does not appear in the text of the treaty, which is a clear deficiency.
Similarly, article 8.3 reads:
The Parties shall, building on existing tools, develop and implement an inclusive, transparent, effective and efficient pandemic prevention, preparedness and response monitoring and evaluation system.
Note well what the treaty does, and does not do, in that paragraph: It commits Ireland to working with other countries to develop AND implement a shared pandemic response system. It does not tell you anything at all about what that system might look like – just that we are committed to implementing it once it has been completed. It is, one could – and probably should – convincingly argue, a blank cheque. We agree to adopt a new system now; we find out what’s in it later.
The problem with the treaty is that it is littered with exactly this same problem: It constitutes a 29 page commitment for Ireland to sign up to and adopt undefined regulations and approaches. In this sense it is a cleverly written document, for its advocates can truthfully say that it doesn’t – by itself – commit Ireland to anything new or dangerous.
But this misses the point: The document does commit Ireland – and all of the other signatories – to adopting standards and policies that are as yet undefined, and to harmonising these standards and policies with those of regimes, like China, who place very little store by human rights or freedoms.
Is it easier, in the round, to imagine Ireland becoming more like China as a result of this treaty, or China becoming more like Ireland? That’s a fair question, and one which deserves public debate.
Alas, so far, in the public sphere, this debate has been left to independents like Michael Collins or Mattie McGrath. The public have a right to expect – and demand – more engagement from their politicians on this question.
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