Equity International Initiative (EII) has warned Nigeria and other sovereign nations not to sign up to proposed amendment of International Health Regulation (IHR) 2005 by the apex law-making body of the World Health Organisation (WHO), the World Health Assembly (WHA).
EII, in a statement, said IHR amendments have nothing to offer by way of strengthening WHO’s preparedness for and response to health emergencies. The non-governmental organisation (NGO) said the amendment is a clandestine script for positioning of WHO as world government, legalising transfer of national sovereignty of nations to the United Nations (UN) agency.
It raised the alarm that the United States was submitting to the WHO a strange proposal to amend several articles of the IHR, which are expected to be adopted by the 75th WHA that kicked off on May 22.
The 75th WHA was held in Geneva, Switzerland, from May 22-28, 2022. It is the first in-person health assembly since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The theme of this year’s Health Assembly is “Health for peace, peace for health.”
Peace ambassador, Chris Iyama of Equity International Initiative, said: “Our conclusion is that Nigeria and indeed all other sovereign nations should not sign up to this proposed amendment to the IHR. Should, for any reason the leadership of the nation want to cast a second look at this proposal, same should be passed to the National Assembly for our elected representatives and the public to have a say on it as the clear implications of the text of this proposal has very troubling and far-reaching implications for the world at large and Nigeria in particular.”
The IHR, first adopted by the WHA in 1969 and last revised in 2005, are legally binding rules that only apply to the WHO that is an instrument that aims for international collaboration “to prevent, protect against, control, and provide a public health response to the international spread of disease in ways that are commensurate with and restricted to public health risks and that avoid unnecessary interference with international traffic and trade.”
The WHO, as the global primary policy maker and stakeholder in public health is the implementer of the IHR. Without any doubt, in the about 15 years of the promulgation of the IHR, at no time has the use and abuse of the legal instrument been tested as was seen since 2020/2021 during the outbreak and aftermath of the COVID-19.
However, according to critics, much as the nations of the world were looking up to the WHO for leadership and policy direction in the global effort to contain the spread of the virus, so called, signs began to emerge that the global body was leading a commercial endeavour by pharmaceutical conglomerates, non-state parties, the deep state and other non-state actors for the imposition and administration of hardly tested mixtures as vaccines as well mandating masks.
EII added: “Ordinarily, going by the title and introduction to the text of the proposal, one would be forgiven if it is assumed that the proposal is intended for the greater good of all and to genuinely prepare the world for future outbreaks of global infections.
“However, reading in between the lines of the texts being smuggled into the IHR and the ones proposed to be deleted from the existing law, one would clearly see the inevitably transmutation of the WHO into a totalitarian body with authority to walk across international borders without regard to rules of national sovereignty on the pretext of fighting outbreak of infection of global concern.”
The NGO said a careful study and review of the texts being removed from the law and the ones being introduced to the IHR clearly show that these amendments have nothing to offer by way of ‘strengthening WHO’s preparedness for and response to health emergencies, but a transfer of national sovereignty of nations to the WHO.
On Article 9, the initiative said the amendment to this article, proposes to remove requirement for the WHO to consult and obtain verification by nation where it is alleged that public health emergency of international concern has occurred before moving in or taking measures within or outside the country with respect to the alleged occurrence. This, according to critics, would be used by powerful nations and indeed, organizations to impose medicines, vaccines and measures on the citizens of nations that the people or their elected leaders are opposed to.
On Article 12, EII said the Director General of the WHO would now have global powers to declare a health emergency has occurred within a state party even when the national authority of the country has not made such determination or does not accept the report of the WHO on the occurrence.
Examining articles 48,49,53,59, the NGO said: “Just as observed above, the true intention of the inventors of the proposed amendments to the IHR is to eliminate the international rule on national sovereignty and territorial integrity of nations, eradication of individual right to private life and right to decide what medication one receives for illness.”
The body said to sign up to these proposed amendments is for a nation to cede its sovereignty, security and rights of its citizens to the WHO and its Director General.
It insisted that authority and sovereignty must reside with the people and their elected leaders.
