Elon Musk and Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus engaged in a Twitter debate concerning the dangers related to a complete and enforceable worldwide accord being deliberated to handle future pandemics.
Battle of Authority
On Thursday, Elon Musk tweeted that international locations mustn’t relinquish authority to the World Well being Group (WHO) with respect to a “pandemic treaty” that has been beneath dialogue. In response, the WHO Director-Common Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus rejected Musk’s declare, saying that the treaty wouldn’t take away nationwide sovereignty, as some critics had feared.
Ghebreyesus tweeted that the treaty would truly assist international locations guard towards pandemics and defend folks, no matter their nation of origin. The WHO director additionally dismissed claims that the pandemic treaty would switch energy to the WHO as “pretend information” and defined that international locations would determine what the treaty ought to embrace whereas implementing measures in accordance with their nationwide legal guidelines.
Supporters of the pandemic treaty imagine that it might fill the gaps uncovered by the COVID-19 pandemic, and Ghebreyesus has criticized the “me-first” strategy of some international locations, which he argues hampers world solidarity within the face of threats like COVID.
Lawrence Gostin, a Georgetown College Professor of World Well being Legislation and director of the WHO’s Collaborating Middle on Nationwide and World Well being Legislation, has criticized “nationalistic leaders” for placing their nation’s pursuits forward of others.
World Surveillance
The preliminary “zero draft” from final yr outlining concepts for a way the WHO can strengthen its preparedness and response to well being emergencies steered the institution of a brand new world surveillance system and proactive countermeasures towards misinformation and social media assaults. A preliminary draft of the pandemic treaty reportedly proposed reserving 20% of any checks, vaccines, or remedies for the WHO to distribute in poorer international locations and waiving mental property rights throughout pandemics to facilitate wider entry to life-saving medication and vaccines extra rapidly.
The WHO Director-Common has mentioned that the pandemic treaty is a collaborative effort by international locations to create a legally binding settlement that will higher put together the world to sort out future pandemics. The treaty goals to make sure that international locations have entry to the mandatory sources and help to sort out pandemics, no matter their wealth or sources, and to facilitate worldwide cooperation to handle world well being challenges.
Too A lot Management
Critics argue that the proposed pandemic treaty would give the WHO an excessive amount of management and sources to direct international locations’ responses to future pandemics, regardless of its dealing with of COVID being questionable. Republicans in Congress have cautioned that they’ll oppose any try by the Biden administration to observe the worldwide pandemic treaty until it receives Senate approval.
In December 2021, the World Well being Meeting’s 194 member international locations agreed to provoke a worldwide course of to arrange and negotiate a world instrument, akin to a conference or settlement, beneath the WHO Structure to strengthen pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response.
An intergovernmental negotiating physique has been created to draft the worldwide pandemic treaty, and negotiations are underway. The target is to current a progress report back to the World Well being Meeting this yr and to undertake the treaty subsequent yr.
This text was produced and syndicated by Wealth of Geeks.
