Forget it! Our politicians will not argue against the WHO’s Animal Farm-inspired power grab

Our current governments can choose to sign away the sovereignty we lend them…but not for long enough.

You might have heard about the Pandemic Preparedness Treaty. Many articles have been written recently, some claiming — and others refuting — that it constitutes a power grab. However, the other legal instrument being pushed by the WHO, the Amendments to the IHR 2005 are not being given the same level of attention despite their importance. I’ll focus on these for this article.

First, it must be said that how these two legal instruments are morphing into shape is a great example of the technocrats’ mode of work. The process is spread throughout several years – or decades in the case of the IHR. The language used is technical, subjective, and convoluted. Acronyms abound and refer to committees, assemblies, organisations, agencies, formal and informal meetings, etcetera. All this creates the illusion of a complex governmental machinery set to move us inexorably towards an undefined UN global utopia.

In the first part of this article, we will immerse ourselves in this ‘illusion of complexity’. For the second part, we will re-emerge and analyse what exactly is being pushed through by the technocrats and why their actions are futile in the longer term.

Let’s start the immersion by providing a bit of context:

The International Health Regulations (IHR) are an instrument of international law, binding on 196 signatories, including all 194 Member States of the WHO.

They were adopted back in 1951 by the 4^th World Health Assembly (WHA), the WHO’s decision-making body – albeit their name was International Sanitary Regulations until 1969. The latest version was written following the SARS health emergency in 2003. Post COVID19, the 74^th WHA (May 2021) amendments have been proposed and are to be voted on at the 77^th World Health Assembly in February 2024.

The Pandemic Preparedness Treaty, the CA+ treaty, calls for more centralised bureaucracy, financing of the WHO by national governments, and a governance body to complement the new IHR. The treaty would require signatories to commit around 5% of their national health budgets. Adoption of this treaty would require a two-thirds majority.

Both legal instruments are being pushed through with the aim to provide the WHO with greater powers to coordinate the response to any future health threat. All this is being done with the enthusiastic support of our government leaders and the apathetic disinterest of members of parliament. This latest effort was unveiled by Boris Johnson in an article he wrote almost two years ago to this date. The article is co-signed by other political actors such as Klaus Iohannis (President of Romania), and Volodymyr Zelensky amongst others.

In the article, Johnson writes about pandemic preparedness and declares that political leaders want “to bring countries together […to] build a more robust international health architecture that will protect future generations.” – this, according to Johnson – “would also include recognition of a ‘One Health’ approach that connects the health of humans, animals, and our planet. And such a treaty should lead to more mutual accountability and shared responsibility, transparency and co-operation within the international system and with its rules and norms.”

Talking about animals, just as with Squealer, the very charming orator pig from Orwell’s Animal Farm, it probably was the case that Boris’s Brexit slogan Take back control was in fact followed by …to give it to the UN.  But we, the regular proletarian quadrupeds, had simply forgotten that second part.

Following Johnson’s article, the Committee on the Functioning of the International Health Regulations (CFIHR) meeting at the 74^th World Health Assembly in May 2021 published its findings and recommendations. One of the recommendations is for National Focal Points (NFPs) – which signatories must designate for implementing Health Measures under the IHR – to be “properly resourced” and “positioned within government”.

Another important recommendation is for signatory states to ensure that national legislation on emergency preparedness and response “supports and is consistent with IHR provisions and IHR implementation (eg that the IHR have been incorporated into the domestic legal order and that implementing legislation has been adopted)”

More recently, the Working Group on Amendments to the IHR (WGIHR) published in November 2022, the Article-by-article compilation of Amendments to the IHR which will be presented to the WHO’s WHA in 2024.

If you have managed to read until here, congratulations! You have now been fully immersed in the illusion of complexity. As the former chairman of the American Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan once said: If I've made myself too clear, you must have misunderstood me.

Let’s look at what some of the amendments would do:

· Change the principle of “standing recommendations” from ‘non-binding’ to binding advice. (Article 1)

· Formalise the National Focal Point (NFP) role in each respective jurisdiction for the implementation of health measures under IHR. Countries will have to enact or adapt legislation to provide National IHR Focal Points with authority and resources to perform their functions (Article 4)

· Set up an extensive surveillance process in all States, which the WHO will verify regularly through a country review mechanism. (Article 5 Surveillance)

· Give the Director General the ability to independently declare emergencies (Article   12)

· Give powers to the WHA to design and approve digital vaccine or other prophylaxis certificates. (Article 36)

· Control of digital communications to prevent contrary information from being freely disseminated (Article 44[h])

Article 3’s amendments also look slightly concerning. (Note the screenshot below showing what is being crossed out and what is been added in its place)

But despite the far-reaching consequences of other amendments, my main concern is two-fold:

First: During the Pandemic, the United Kingdom’s IHR Focal Point, namely Public Health England (now renamed United Kingdom Health Security Agency), was in charge of the government’s response to the emergency. Cabinet members took the back seat and bleated the mantra of “follow the science” whenever anyone questioned the measures they implemented. Meanwhile PHE’s experts provided guidance to government including in relation to lockdowns, mask-wearing, and vaccination roll-out. All this guidance was adopted by government without question. Yet NFPs and their experts are not accountable to anyone but the WHO. This is not being openly discussed. In fact, the letter confirming that the United Kingdom Health Security Agency had become the new IHR National Focal Point (5^th May 2021) was published only temporarily. It has since been deleted and can’t be found anywhere on the internet (Although I have a copy of it for those who want to read it). The amendments to the IHR would further entrench these unaccountable entities within the executive branch of government.  

Second: The requirement to adapt national legislation to align with the IHR under the concept of “legal preparedness” is crucial. I have discussed in previous articles how, during the pandemic, the United Kingdom’s government, passed delegated legislation to bypass the need for proper parliamentary scrutiny. Should there be a new emergency in the near future, support in parliament for using delegated legislation could be harder to obtain. Therefore, to be able to implement emergency measures without being perceived as acting like autocrats, signatory member states will need to achieve legal preparedness by adapting primary their legislation to comply with the IHR in advance.

One can speculate – with or without a tin-foil hat – about whether this is a coldly calculated power grab or just the regular work of industrious technocrats chipping away at national sovereignty and our constitution over time. Still, one thing is certain, our politicians will not argue against any of this.

So, what are we the regular people to do?

The technocrats play the political “long game”, and just like in Animal Farm, they have created the illusion of complexity to make people believe that their developed apparatus of government – and its duties – are too hard to understand. As Orwell explains:

“There was, as Squealer was never tired of explaining, endless work in the supervision and organisation of the farm. Much of this work was of a kind that the other animals were too ignorant to understand. For example, Squealer told them that the pigs had to expend enormous labours every day upon mysterious things called "files," "reports," "minutes," and "memoranda." These were large sheets of paper which had to be closely covered with writing, and as soon as they were so covered, they were burnt in the furnace. This was of the highest importance for the welfare of the farm, Squealer said.”

By making everyone think they are just benevolent, hardworking experts only concerned with our collective health, and telling us that we have no choice but to accept their guidance, they have so far managed to move society slowly but surely towards their dreamed utopia. This is what some call the “Long march through the institutions”.

The challenge for us regular citizens, however, is to not believe the illusion of complexity. Believing them and despairing to the point of organising revolutions we end up replacing a tyrant with a new charismatic leader who promises freedom and riches but who eventually delivers only more tyranny.

Perhaps then, we should instead play an even longer game and put our trust in this strategy. Justice is the longest game; it depends on each of us abiding by it and not fearing the consequences of disregarding the perverted laws and regulations designed by those who think they can eventually overcome Natural Law.

We should not choose our politicians based on what they say today or what they pretend their parties stand for at the moment. We should not want a government that promises to do the right thing eventually but tells us that right now is not the time. We should consider at length what values and ideas are beneficial in the long term even and not only for today. We should forget about party affiliation, political narratives and the false promises of those who act only for today.

The sooner we realise this, the sooner the technocrats will fall under their own weight. I believe this is inevitable. In the meantime, let the pigs pork on their illusion of power and do not follow their ways, they will be the losers.