WHO planning new “pandemic treaty” for 2024
Kit Knightly | OFF GUARDIAN
In December of last year, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced plans for an “international treaty on pandemic prevention and preparedness”.
According to the Council of Europe’s website, an “intergovernmental negotiating body” has been formed, and will be holding its first meeting on March 1st.
The aim is to “deliver a progress report to the 76th World Health Assembly in 2023” and then have the proposed instrument ready for legal implementation by 2024.
None of this should come as much of a surprise, the signs have all been there. If you’ve been paying attention you could probably predict almost everything that will be in this new legislation.
A paper titled “Multilateralism in times of global pandemic: Lessons learned and the way forward” was published by the G20 in Decemeber 2020.
It details all the problems faced by international multilateral organizations during the “pandemic” [emphasis added]:
Individual states cannot effectively manage global public threats such as the COVID-19 pandemic on their own […] overcoming the current health crisis and rebuilding livelihoods can only be achieved through multilateral action on both the economic and social fronts […] The COVID-19 pandemic and its economic consequences have revealed the weakness of the current arrangements for multilateral cooperation. International organizations with the mandate to play leading roles in dealing with international crises have not functioned effectively.
And goes on to propose several solutions, including…
The G20 should reinforce the capacity of the World Health Organization. A stronger and more responsive WHO can help the international community manage pandemics and other health challenges more effectively. It can provide early warning systems and coordinate rapid global responses to health emergencies.
In January of 2021 the EU thinktank Foundation for European Progressive Studies published a 268-page document titled “Reforming Multilateralism in Post Covid Times”, which called for a “more legitimate and binding United Nations”, suggested the EU join the UN Security Council, and asked:
Is national sovereignty compatible with multilateralism?”
A few months later the United Nations Foundation published its own variation on this theme: “Reimagining multilateralism for a post-Covid future”
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