URGENT Dispute must be settled according to WHA rules of procedure

URGENT Critical legal rebuttal RE: Clear WHO misinterpretation of the spirit of IHR 55(1)(2) and notice of responsibility for reparations if WHO & Member States continue the vote under Agenda Item 13.3 This is a dispute of a private nature under WHA rules of procedure for private disputes, regarding Agenda Item 13.3 Amendments to the IHR. The WHO is responsible and \"shall\" settle this URGENT dispute. Provisions of Article 55 of the IHR, which sets out to whom can propose amendments to the IHR, and when and how such proposals must be communicated to States Parties, have absolutely not been met by the WHO Secretariat.

Article 55(1) of the IHR enables any State Party or the WHO Director-General to propose amendments to the IHR for consideration by the World Health Assembly. This has been applied to the WGIHR process, which is not in dispute.

The WHO is acting in bad faith insofar as the attempt to ask Member States to continue WGIHR negotiations on the proposed amendments. This bad faith by WHO is shown in the OMISSION of the KEY text in IHR 55(2), when WHO makes the following misguided argument, which could only be true if the KEY text is omitted, which is precisely what WHO did, omit the main part in order to make a false argument, a crime called fraud of law in many Member States. WHO falsely claims: “Article 55(2) of the IHR further provides that the WHO Director-General shall communicate any proposed amendment to all States Parties at least four months before the World Health Assembly for consideration. This applies to any proposed IHR amendment submitted by a State Party or the WHO Director-General pursuant to Article 55(1).” 

The reason WHO is acting in bad faith to continue is they are knowingly attempting to violate their own IHR procedural limits. The Article 55(2) intent is very clear, so WHO took out the main part in bad faith in order to rebut the thousands of petitions asking to enforce Article 55 and stop the IHR Amendments at WHA77 for being late. Article 55(2) states unequivocally that the TEXT of any proposed amendment (meaning the actual TEXT of all 300+ amendments for due process to review the CONTENT). Verbatim Article 55(2) is as follows: “THE TEXT of any proposed amendment shall be communicated to all States Parties by the Director-General at least four months before the Health Assembly at which it is proposed for consideration.” (CAP, italics & Bold added for emphasis)

In comparison, we can easily see the WHO OMITS the verbiage “THE TEXT of”, in order to purport “that the WHO Director-General shall communicate any proposed amendment to all States Parties at least four months before the World Health Assembly for consideration.

WHO added in the following line as an opinion which we dispute based on the text of IHR 55(2). “This applies to any proposed IHR amendment submitted by a State Party or the WHO Director-General pursuant to Article 55(1).”

It is not true that the WHO Director-General shall communicate any proposed amendment to all States Parties at least four months before the World Health Assembly for consideration. This applies to any proposed IHR amendment submitted by a State Party or the WHO Director-General pursuant to Article 55(1).”

The reason this is false is that in multilateral negotiations there are stages of the negotiation, and possible procedures attached to delineate the different stages. Under Article 55 we can see that the process is broken into a pre-negotiation stage of deciding the topics titles, which is all that can be accomplished under Article 55(1), the Amendments could be merely proposed, and listed for future text to be defined and agreed upon, and eventually voted upon in the WHA.

Under Article 55(2) we can clearly see that the proposed amendments mentioned in Article 55(1), which were preliminary proposals have now become applied to the next stage of the negotiation, where actual text is defined, agreed upon and finalized for the States to review at minimum 4 months prior to the WHA. It bears repeating that verbatim Article 55(2) is as follows: “THE TEXT of any proposed amendment shall be communicated to all States Parties by the Director-General at least four months before the Health Assembly at which it is proposed for consideration.” (CAP, italics & Bold added for emphasis)

Based on the foregoing arguments, which are very clearly laid out in the full text of IHR Article 55, our organizations firmly refute the following false claim by World Health Organization: “In fulfilling the Article 55(2) requirement, the WHO Secretariat circulated all proposals for amendments to the IHR on 16 November 2022, some 17 months before the Seventy-seventh World Health Assembly, which begins on 27 May 2024, when they are proposed for consideration. The World Health Assembly established the WGIHR, which operates as a subdivision of the Assembly and includes all 196 States Parties. As such, the WHO Secretariat has further exceeded the technical requirements of Article 55(2) by communicating not only the original 308 amendments, but also by communicating all proposed changes to these amendments developed by the WGIHR drafting group, to all 196 States Parties, after each WGIHR meeting. These communications to all States Parties occurred at the conclusion of each WGHIR meeting. In sum, both the letter and the spirit of Article 55(2) have been met. The letter of the provision was fulfilled, again, by the communication of 16 November 2022. This was well in advance of the four-month requirement. This notice maximized the time available for all States Parties for domestic and international consideration and coordination. The spirit of the provision, which is to ensure that all States Parties have adequate time to consider and coordinate domestically and internationally on the proposed amendments in the run up to the Assembly, has been met. 

We stand firm in our contention that the WHO is acting in bad faith, omitting parts of the IHR 55 in order to push through 300+ Amendments in a way that actually violates the full text of the IHR 55(2). No one OMITS the KEY part of a rule, unless they are trying to break that same rule in bad faith, which is fraud of law. This is precisely why the IHR Amendments must not be adopted and the WHO must be reviewed.  In the event that the IHR amendments are adopted, please be advised that all member states and the world health organization involved in the violation of the IHR procedural rules will be held responsible, and adopted amendments will be void and properly nullified. Sincerely,

Interest of Justice

Free Speech Association

Legal Authority:

Article 55 Amendments

1. Amendments to these Regulations may be proposed by any State Party or by the Director- General. Such proposals for amendments shall be submitted to the Health Assembly for its consideration.

2. The text of any proposed amendment shall be communicated to all States Parties by the Director-General at least four months before the Health Assembly at which it is proposed for consideration.

3. Amendments to these Regulations adopted by the Health Assembly pursuant to this Article shall come into force for all States Parties on the same terms, and subject to the same rights and obligations, as provided for in Article 22 of the Constitution of WHO and Articles 59 to 64 of these Regulations.

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