The WHO power grab

Last week, discussions were held at a WHO summit in Geneva regarding the so-called Pandemic Treaty. Parallel to this summit, the Inspired Global Leadership Summit was organized, a conference critical of the Pandemic Treaty. I was invited to speak at this summit, and I accepted the invitation. Let me explain why.

At the WHO summit, among other things, 300 amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR) were proposed. These amendments would allow the WHO to unilaterally declare an international medical emergency if an unspecified council of experts and virologists deems it advisable. The stated goal: to respond more efficiently to pandemics by developing a so-called 'One Health Policy.'

What does the One Health Policy entail? If you browse the WHO website, you will find something like the following: humans are part of a broader ecological system; everything is interconnected—humans, animals, plants, and the climate system; therefore, a holistic approach is needed. No one would object against this vision. Even New Agers and the remaining hippies wouldn't.

And how exactly does one plan to realize the One Health Policy? This is where it gets a bit more delicate. The WHO wants globally coordinated prevention and management of so-called international Medical Emergencies. Once such an emergency is declared, the WHO takes radical control: they want to autonomously enter contracts with pharmaceutical companies, impose travel restrictions on citizens, and mandate standardized medical interventions. They also aim to establish a broader global bio-surveillance system, including permanent vaccination passports. For this, the WHO has taken over the technology of the EU Digital Covid Certificate from the EU as of July 1, 2023. You know, the certificate based on the subsequently proven false assumption that the Covid vaccine would stop the virus's spread.

The medical emergency thus grants almost absolute power to the WHO. This raises the question: who can declare the international medical emergency under the proposed legislation? It won't surprise you: the Director-General of the WHO. And for this, there doesn’t even need to be a viral outbreak. Climate changes that could potentially trigger such an outbreak are sufficient to declare an emergency.

Allow us to have some reservations. Firstly, it has become sufficiently clear that the experts and virologists of the WHO are quite quick to notice a medical emergency. Increasingly so in recent decades. For example, in 2023, the WHO deemed monkeypox a medical emergency when approximately 16,000 cases were detected in a world population of over 8 billion people.

The experts and virologists in charge noted that 'we had no control whatsoever' over monkeypox, and the mass media helped spread their message. The result: in a short time, long queues formed at vaccination centers, and Big Pharma swung into action. Belgium alone invested 110 million euros in vaccines against monkeypox. No idea how many were administered, but either they were remarkably effective, or it was a false pandemic alarm. I suspect the latter option is the most plausible.

If you browse the WHO texts, you’ll find a discourse convinced of the beneficial nature of a technocratic approach to global health, where the 'right,' 'scientific,' 'rational' medical interventions are top-down imposed on the population through the strictest possible surveillance.

The WHO (and related globalist institutions) undoubtedly see themselves as the ultimate representatives of the Enlightenment tradition, the pinnacle of rationality. I dare to doubt whether that is true. And I'm putting it mildly. To return to the monkeypox example: from a rational point of view, does anyone actually doubt that those 110 million euros in Belgium could have been better spent on combating, say, child poverty and education?

And does the WHO really represents the kind of open mindedness the seminal Enlightenment philosophers had in mind? Read the texts generally considered the basis of the Enlightenment tradition. What does Kant say, for example, in his essay 'What is Enlightenment'? He says, unequivocally, that the goal of the Enlightenment tradition is to free the citizen from his immaturity. It’s all too easy to let a teacher determine what is right and wrong, a priest what is good and evil, and yes, a doctor what is healthy and unhealthy. Think for yourself. Dare to think. Sapere Aude.

This is what I think: in their pursuit of a rational approach to health, institutions like the WHO have inadvertently ended up in the opposite. They no longer represent science, rationality, and the Enlightenment, let alone a society with self-determination and the right to free speech. In its absolutist, totalitarian ambitions, rationality has turned into absurd irrationality, and the pursuit of Enlightenment heralds a new era of darkness.

The Pandemic Treaty is being negotiated by all members of the WHO General Assembly, which includes all 193 UN member countries. The results are binding for all 193 countries. This means that none of the states can escape it, under penalty of (severe) economic sanctions imposed by the UN. If a simple majority ultimately votes for the amendments, the legislation will come into effect within 12 months, so by May 2025.

The vote is essentially a moment where democratically elected politicians will vote for or against the abolition of democracy. If a simple majority is reached, we will be one huge step closer to replacing democracy with technocracy—a world where citizens are passively subjected to 'experts.'

Last year, I raised my voice about this in the European Parliament in Strasbourg and Brussels and in the US senate at Capitol Hill. And I did so again last week in Geneva. People across all political orientations must unite who fundamentally question this technocratic trend. They must unite, not into a mass, but into a group. The difference between a mass and a group? A mass connects because everyone fanatically shares the same opinion; a group connects because people grant each other the right to speak as human beings, regardless of opinions. In a mass, differing opinions are a reason for hatred and aggression; in a group, differing opinions are a reason for love. Precisely where the Other is different, he becomes interesting. As I have said elsewhere: If we only love the Other because he is identical to ourselves, we do not love the Other but our own mirror image, and what we feel is not love but narcissism.

And the act that leads to connection is an act as old as humanity itself: the act of sincere speaking. Ultimately, it is this act, which humans were capable of around the campfires of prehistoric times, that will surpass the power of the greatest technological surveillance apparatus. It is the art of speaking, the phenomenon of truth, that must be rediscovered in times of technocracy. It is the citizen who masters the art of sincere speaking that Kant had in mind in his essay on Enlightenment—not the citizen who mindlessly follows and undergoes the expert discourse of the WHO.