Freedom, as we know it, hangs on meetings in Geneva this week

In this guest post from Keri Molloy, she discusses proposed changes to the International Health Regulations being discussed by the World Health Organisation this week and New Zealand’s role in them. She says health authorities face a trust crisis.

Proposed changes to the WHO’s International Health Regulations would remove important human rights and fundamental freedom considerations, in favour of “equity, inclusivity and coherence”.

Whatever you believe about the handling of COVID-19, there is something more at stake this week. 

It’s about freedom.

The World Health Organisation’s International Health Regulations Review Committee is holding meetings in Switzerland. 

The purpose of these meetings is to finalise a report regarding proposed amendments to existing international regulations.

If adopted the amendments will be far reaching and will affect us all.

The committee will provide its report to the WHO Director-General before the end of this month. Then in 2024 a working group will present the finalised amendments for consideration by the World Health Assembly, which is the decision-making body of the WHO.

New Zealand is deep in the process.

An official New Zealand Government submission was lodged in September 2022, prioritising amendments relating to notification, risk assessment and communication mechanisms.  

“Aotearoa New Zealand is actively engaged in a number of WHO-led processes to reform and strengthen the global health architecture for pandemic prevention, preparedness and response. This is critical to ensuring the world does not face a crisis of the same magnitude as COVID-19 again”: so wrote Public Health Agency deputy director-general Andrew Old, in response to an Official Information Act request.

New Zealand’s Andrew Forsyth – the NZ Ministry of Health’s manager of Public Health Strategy – is a member of the review committee.

Surprisingly, you won’t find much about this week’s critical Geneva meetings in the mainstream media. 

But if you take the trouble to seek information independently, you’ll find glaring red flags. 

We’re warned that the amendments dramatically expand the role of the WHO and amount to handing over national sovereignty to that body.

It appears the WHO will be able to declare a health emergency and then impose the rules it chooses to implement global policies.

Most worrying is that the proposed amendments would seek to remove respect for dignity, human rights and fundamental freedoms.

The proposed regulations require that member states recognise the WHO as the guidance and coordinating authority of international public health response during public health emergencies of international concern. And that they undertake to follow the WHO’s recommendations in their international public health response.

In the meantime, post-pandemic, trust in the WHO, and health authorities worldwide, has taken a dive.

The WHO itself refers to a “trust crisis”.

Remember that in 2021 WHO Director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus challenged leaders to ensure that countries had vaccinated 70 per cent of their populations by the middle of 2022.

By 2022, the WHO acknowledged that vaccines were proving ‘less effective than hoped’ at reducing infection and transmission. 

But despite this finding, despite growing concerns about vaccine safety and despite the high proportion of the global populations with infection-induced immunity, the vaccination target remained.

In the USA trust in the CDC (Centres for Disease Control and Prevention) has plummeted after its COVID-19 pandemic performance. (The CDC and the WHO work together to coordinate and implement public health programmes globally.)

In the UK cardiologist Dr Aseem Malhotra said this month: “There is no word to describe this horrific level of wilful blindness from health authorities. The mRNA vaccines can cause cardiac arrests and heart attacks. This can happen within a short time frame after the jab or several months later.” 

Here, New Zealand Doctors Speaking Out with Science (NZDSOS) are seeking acknowledgement by the government of the harms caused by the covid injections and the mandates, along with a commitment to fully investigate every report of possible harm associated with the injections.

They call for freedom of doctors to adhere to the principles of informed consent, the right to refuse medical treatment, the Nuremberg Code and the New Zealand Bill of Rights.

And, most relevant to the topic of reclaiming freedom, they lobby for restoring national sovereignty, starting with complete independence from the WHO.

Elsewhere analysts identify a number of reasons  why the proposed amendments should be rejected. These reasons include:

  • Loss of dignity, human rights and fundamental freedoms
  • Dictatorial power give to the WHO’s Director General
  • Dictatorial powers given to unelected regional directors of the WHO
  • National sovereignty handed over to the WHO.
  • The introduction of health certificates affecting freedom of movement and travel
  • Violation of privacy
  • Censorship – the WHO proposes to strengthen capacities to counter misinformation and disinformation

The most disturbing proposed amendment is to the first paragraph of Article 3 in the existing regulations. 

The current version of the regulations defends the unalienable rights of people. It currently states that the regulations must be implemented ‘with full respect for the dignity, human rights and fundamental freedoms of persons’. The proposed amendment deletes those vitally important words, as below.

Article 3 Principles 1. The implementation of these Regulations shall be ….with full respect for the dignity, human rights and fundamental freedoms of persons…. based on the principles of equity, inclusivity, coherence and in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities of the States Parties, taking into consideration their social and economic development.

I’m looking forward to a full report from review committee member Andrew Forsyth about this weeks meetings in Geneva. And I’m hoping that public awareness will grow so that we can give our politicians a clear message.

This article was first published at Keri Molloy’s Substack and is republished here with her permission. Keri is an artist and concerned citizen of New Zealand with 40 years experience as a journalist.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent or reflect those of The Looking Glass.

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Sources

Proposed Amendments to the International Health Regulations (2005) https://apps.who.int/gb/wgihr/pdf_files/wgihr1/WGIHR_Compilation-en.pdf

Nearly half of Americans don’t trust CDC and FDA — that’s a problem | The Hill

Treaty plans Pandemic treaty plans thrashed out at WHO

https://globalizationandhealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12992-021-00779-0

WHO Convention Agreement https://apps.who.int/gb/inb/pdf_files/inb3/A_INB3_3-en.pdf

WHO’s response plan                                                         Strategic preparedness, readiness and response plan to end the global COVID-19 emergency in 2022

WHO’s global plan https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/WHO-WHE-SPP-2022.1

Stop the Amendments http://StopTheAmendments.com

Stats Provisional Mortality Statistics, Jan – Sep 2022

Plausibility Plausibility But Not Science Has Dominated Public Discussions of the Covid Pandemic ⋆ Brownstone Institute

Lies, Damned Lies, and Medical Science

Reasons for concern

James Roguski 100 Reasons

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