New Zealanders are not informed and it seems they are counting on that.
Ask around and you will find most people have no idea what the World Health Organisation (WHO) is, let alone what it is doing.
To recap:
The Switzerland based WHO is driving two parallel negotiations
amending existing International Health Regulations
developing a new Pandemic Treaty
Both processes aim to be concluded and presented to the World Health Assembly in Geneva in May this year, for adoption by delegates from the WHO’s 194 member states. They need just a 50 percent vote in favour.
If approved, these regulations will transform the WHO from an advisory body into a global authority, issuing legally binding dictates to its member states.
This is serious stuff and people have no idea what the implications are relating to.vaccine mandates, lockdowns, quarantines, vaccine passports, masking, censorship, even climate change and husbandry.
The WHO director-general will be empowered to declare an international health emergency and member states will then be obliged to follow his orders.
Negotiations on the two pronged initiative have taken place behind closed doors.
Now the government has opened what it calls ‘consultation’ on the WHO’s proposed amendments to International Health Regulations (2005).
The trouble is there’s no debate in mainstream media and, in any case, the document in question is out of date. So ignorance is an overriding factor in what is likely to be acquiescence.
The only version of the amendments that have been made publicly available are those initially published in 2022. Since then the working group charged with the final draft have conducted six official meetings. We don’t know what changes have been made.
New Zealand’s Ashley Bloomfield, known for his rigid rejection of vaccine exemptions during the COVID pandemic, co-chairs this working group.
Who else is representing New Zealand and why do they not have public profiles, given the importance of the work they are doing?
Ask anyone on the street, or in your social circle, if they know who represents us at the headquarters of either the WHO, or its sidekick the World Economic Forum (WEF), and you will find they don’t know..
The WHO listed NZ’s representatives at its executive board meeting in January 2024 as Mr N Glassey (deputy permanent representative, Geneva) and Ms C van Bohemen Hunter (health policy adviser, permanent mission, Geneva).
Have you ever heard of them?
According to Linked In: Ms C van Bohemen Hunter is credited with a ‘Master of Science degree in Gender and International Relations’. She is the author of a dissertation, entitled ‘Mixing Oil and Water? Integrating gender and neoliberalism at the IMF’.
Mr N Glassey had a Master of Science degree. He is New Zealand’s Deputy Permanent Representative and Consul General in Switzerland, working for the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Mr Glassey is also Permanent Representative to the UN’s Environment Project.
Do their qualifications give them authority to make decisions on your behalf?
If our unelected representatives, such as Ms van Bohemen Hunter and Mr Glassey, give the nod to the WHO’s plans, New Zealand will undertake to follow all future recommendations (Article 1, new art. 13A) from the WHO director-general (who is another unelected bureaucrat).
Article 18 of the amendments lists recommendations issued by WHO that may include the following advice:
review travel history in affected areas
review proof of medical examination and any laboratory analysis
require medical examinations
review proof of vaccination or other prophylaxis
require vaccination or other prophylaxis
place suspect persons under public health observation
implement quarantine or other health measures for suspect persons
implement isolation and treatment where necessary of affected persons
implement tracing of contacts of suspect or affected persons
refuse entry of suspect and affected persons
refuse entry of unaffected persons to affected areas
implement exit screening and/or restrictions on persons from affected areas
What else is the WHO up to?
One of its new projects is a Regional Digital Health Action Framework for the Western Pacific (that’s us).
The framework promotes the development of digital health strategies, and the implementation of action plans to achieve digital health governance. That encompasses use of digital health technologies such as Artificial Intelligence for health in countries through the development of policy and regulations. For example, personal vaccination records for travel purposes. Data will be used to monitor global uptake of vaccination, and adherence with WHO policy recommendations.
Unless New Zealand opts out of the amendments to the International Health Regulations 2005, any required legislation would need to be completed within two years of their adoption, at which point the amendments will come into effect.
Why are we not having a public conversation about all this now? Time is short.
Under the proposed WHO treaty’s draft agreement, countries will commit to censoring what the WHO deems to be false, misleading, misinformation or disinformation.
Where are the interviews with our people in Switzerland who wield such power, as they represent New Zealand on the world stage.
On the bright side
any ratification or adoption process for either product will require adequate recognition of the impact on Māori and Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
we are promised a National Interest Analysis when negotiations for both instruments have concluded.
Bring it on.
In the meantime, it’s important to ask questions, though getting information is a long and arduous process.
After a six month wait for official information about last year’s World Health Assembly event, Chief Ombudsman Peter Boshier acknowledged that improvements could be made.
The Official Information Act requires that a decision be made and communicated on an official information request no later than 20 working days after the day on which the request was received (unless an extension of this time limit is made).
My request for information about New Zealand’s involvement at last year’s World Health Assembly in Geneva was received by the Ministry of Health on 23 May 2023.
By the time I received the information, months later, the event in question was long gone.
Chief Ombudsman Peter Boshier wrote, in November: “... I have formed the final opinion that there has been a failure to meet the requirements imposed by the OIA. I have recommended that the Ministry report back to me on what improvements it proposes to make to address the factors that have led to the delay, and thereby avoid future delays of this kind. I have also reported my final opinion to the Minister of Health.”
So I keep on asking questions.
Who will represent New Zealand at the World Health Assembly in May 2024?
Do they have speaking and voting rights?
Who is briefing them?
What are they told to do and how to vote?
What are their roles?
Who appointed them?
Have the issues been discussed in Parliament?
Will they be discussed in Parliament before the May vote?
Who are our representatives at the World Economic Forum, with which the WHO works closely?
Note: Questions along these lines that were submitted to Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters and the Ombudsman’s office, in January, remain unanswered.
Very good informative article, Keri.
Good questions Keri, keep on keeping on...someone has to!