22 State Attorneys General Of The US Oppose New WHO Regulation And Treaty -Write Letter To President —May 8

President Joseph R. Biden Jr.

The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW

Washington, D.C. 20500

Re

World Health Organization’s International Health Regulations (IHR) and new Pandemic Treaty.

Dear Mr. President:

As the chief legal officers of our States, we oppose two instruments under negotiation that could give the World Health Organization (WHO) unprecedented and unconstitutional powers over the United States and her people. Justice Neil Gorsuch remarked that the COVID-19 pandemic may have been “the greatest intrusions on civil liberties in the peacetime history of this country.”1 Meanwhile, the WHO failed to hold the Chinese Communist Party accountable for its lies and deceptions during the pandemic.2 Rather than learning from these failures, some inexplicably want to relinquish more power to unelected and unaccountable institutions.

These proposed accords could radically transform the WHO’s existing International Health Regulations (IHRs) and institute a new “Pandemic Agreement” (Treaty). 

The current draft of the Pandemic Agreement purportedly serves as “ne-gotiating text” for international consideration. 

Although the latest iteration is far better than prior versions, it’s still highly problematic. The fluid and opaque nature of these proceedings, moreover, could allow the most egregious provisions from past versions to return. 

Meanwhile, the IHR amendment process has largely occurred behind closed doors as the working group considers hundreds of proposals. 

To varying degrees, these measures would threaten national sovereignty, undermine states’ authority, and imperil constitutionally guaranteed freedoms. Ultimately, the goal of these instruments isn’t to protect public health. It’s to cede authority to the WHO-specifically its Director-General-to restrict our citizens’ rights to freedom of speech, privacy, movement (especially travel across borders) and informed consent. We therefore oppose such accords for several important reasons. 

First, the two proposed instruments would transform the WHO from an advisory, charitable organ- ization into the world’s governor of public health. 

The WHO currently lacks authority to enforce its recommendations. Under proposed IHR amendments and the Pandemic Treaty, however, the WHO’s Director-General would achieve the power to unilaterally declare a “public health emergency of international concern” (PHEIC) in one or more member nations. 

Such declarations can include perceived or potential emer- gencies other than pandemics, including climate change, immigration, gun violence, or even “emergencies” involving plants, animals, or ecosystems. 

The more egregious versions of the proposals would authorize the Director-General to dictate what must be done in response to a declared PHEIC. 

In other words, America’s elected repre-sentatives would no longer set the nation’s public health policies. 

Even watered down, these proposals would inappropriately cede American sovereignty to the WHO. 

Second, the federal government cannot delegate public health decisions to an international body. 

The U.S. Constitution doesn’t vest responsibility for public health policy with the federal government. It reserves those powers for the States. Even if the federal government had such power, Article II, Section 2 requires approval by the United States Senate. 

Third, the proposed IHR amendments and the Pandemic Treaty would lay the groundwork for a global surveillance infrastructure, ostensibly in the interest of public health, but with the inherent opportunity for control (as with Communist China’s “social credit system”). 

The current draft instructs signatories to “cooperate, in ac- cordance with national law, in preventing misinformation and disinformation.” 

This is particularly dangerous given that your administration pressured and encouraged social-media companies to suppress free speech during COVID-19.4 

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed fundamental flaws with the WHO and other public health institutions. These entities breached public trust and are unquestionably in need of reform. 

The proposed measures, however, would only exacerbate the

WHO’s underlying problems and enable more civil liberties violations during future “emergencies.” Accordingly, we will resist any attempt to enable the WHO to directly or indirectly set public policy for our citizens.

4 See Missouri v. Biden, No. 3:22-CV-01213, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 114585 (W.D. La. July 4,

1. Arizona v. Mayorkas, 143 S. Ct. 1312, 1314 (2023) (Gorsuch, J., concurring).
2. See The Origins of the Global Pandemic, Including the Roles of the CCP & WHO, Committee on Foreign Affairs, U.S. House of Representatives (Sept. 2020),
3. Revised draft of the negotiating text of the WHO Pandemic Agreement, World Health Organization (March 2024), https://apps.who.int/gb/inb/pdf_files/inb9/A_inb9_3-en.pdf.

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