Are New WHO Treaties Implementing a Global Surveillance State?

By Max Jones / Original to ScheerPost

At the 76th World Health Assembly in May of 2023, World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros announced that the WHO will respond to the apparently inevitable growing number of future pandemics with amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR), a legally binding framework for WHO member states, and a new “pandemic accord” that define their “rights and obligations” in responding to global pandemics.

This makes “a generational commitment that we will not go back to the old cycle of panic and neglect that left our world vulnerable, but move forward with a shared commitment to meet shared threats with a shared response,” he said. This begs the question — how will the WHO make this “generational commitment” to face the threats of future pandemics?

To help us answer this question is Dr. Amrei Müller, a professor in international law and co-director of the Global Health Responsibility Agency. Müller has been tracking these conventions closely, and believes they are less concerned with medical equity and pandemic safety, and more concerned with corporate power and control.

Transcript

Jones: [00:00:00] At the 76th World Health Assembly in May of 2023, World Health Organization Director General Tedro sworn delegates from the WHO’s 194 member countries that the world will face many more pandemics in the future, and he declared a plan to combat these future pandemics with the creation of a new pandemic accord that defined the rights and obligations of member states during pandemics, as well as amendments to the international health regulations.

While the stated goal of these conventions is to better prepare the global population against viral emergencies, Our guest, Dr. Amre Moller, an assistant professor at University of Dublin Sutherland School of Law and co director of the Global Health Responsibility Agency has done extensive research into these documents that reveal huge human rights abuses, as well as an ulterior agenda almost no one in the human rights community has dared to take on.

Hi, Amre. Thanks for coming on Journalists for Sale today. 

Müller: Thank you very much for the invitation. I’m looking forward to our conversation. 

Jones: Me too. We’ve talked a lot in private about this these two [00:01:00] treaties, or conventions, or whatever you want to call them. I just wanted to get into the basics today.

If you can start off by telling us what are the international health regulations? What are these amendments that are being proposed by member states of the world health organization and are being set to be voted on at the upcoming world health assembly, as well as what’s going on with the new who CA plus treaty cause much of the discussion around these documents that’s taken place, there hasn’t been much discussion at all, but Almost all of the discussion that’s taken place has been around this angle of is it promoting greater health equity during pandemics essentially will will member states, despite how rich they are get equal access to these pandemic medical products.

But you’ve looked at these conventions from a much different perspective than that. So what’s the real agenda behind these documents and if you have any opinions Why do you think that your colleagues are not discussing it? 

Müller: [00:02:00] Yeah, okay. So first of all, let’s get Into the basics about these two processes that are going on att he WHO because it’s important to understand that this is two parallel processes and the relationship between those two, even though it’s less than three weeks before the start of the 77th health assembly at which the, these two instruments should be adopted. It’s not, it’s still not clear how they should relate to each other, but yeah, but let’s start from the beginning. So it was pretty early on during the COVID pandemic, I think it was early 2021 when there were the first calls that they first of all came from the European union, but then also from the WHO director general and then from the G7; that one would need to reform the legal framework for pandemic preparedness and response in order to be better prepared next time when there would be another pandemic. [00:03:00] And then there were officially decisions were taken during, I think, the special session of the World Health Assembly in December 2021, and then in May 2022 to reform that that legal framework.

And so the first decision that was made to, was to negotiate a treaty on pandemic preparedness and response. And the second decision that was made was to thoroughly revise the so called international health regulations. These international health regulations, this is an old treaty, it has been revised in 2005, pretty extensively and it has been enforced since then.

And it regulates pandemic and preparedness and response activities at the global level already. So the member states of the WHO have been negotiating both these treaties. Amendments to the International Health Regulations and the new treaty since I think, yeah, [00:04:00] approximately the beginning of 2022.

And so they are still negotiating the final versions and they are to be adopted at the upcoming 77th World Health Assembly, which will start on the 27th of May. Yeah, so this is the brief background of these two instruments now concerning this medical equity question. This is indeed it’s it is used as one of the arguments to justify these reforms and to promote them.

And yeah, to understand this. It’s argument that might be helpful to look a little bit into the reasons that the WHO is actually giving for yeah for these reforms or why they should be pursued. And so it’s, uh, there, there are several reasons, but the main reason is really that the WHO argues that the global response to covid was a failure.

I would actually agree with the WHO in that, on that [00:05:00] point, but I would very much disagree with the reasons that the WHO is giving for that failure. So the WHO primarily argues that the reasons why we didn’t, yeah, and the COVID pandemic much faster was because the counter measures that the WHO was recommended to take all recommended to all states to take to address COVID, they were not implemented quickly enough and not rigorously enough.

So for example, that led them to a situation that COVID spread from China over the entire world, and we had the overwhelmed health systems in many countries, and many people were killed and now after the COVID pandemic is over, we still have to cope with these long COVID cases.

And then it also argues that the spread of that of what The WHO regards as medical miss and disinformation about COVID. It was not combated fast enough. And then [00:06:00] that led to mistrust in health authorities and then non compliance with public health and social measures and also promoted vaccine hesitancy.

And that also contributed to the spread of COVID. And then another reason that the WHO gives for the reforms is also that that during the COVID pandemic that many lives could have been saved in addition, if we would have developed these vaccines even faster, so that would, mean that we could have ended the lockdowns faster and then also that we would have needed to grant these emergency authorizations to these vaccines faster and then distribute them and administer them faster to each and every person on this planet.

And these arguments then often go also hand in hand with the argument that if the international community would have been driven by solidarity and equity. So this is the equity argument. Then the vaccines would be, have been distributed much more equally, much more [00:07:00] quickly around the world.

And health emergency could have ended faster. So this is the argument for medical equity that is driving this reform and to justify the new treaty and the amendments. And of course, it speaks to the compassion of many human beings also because many are, of course, convinced that that the only, yeah, way out of a pandemic is really that you have vaccines as quickly as possible.

that can of course be questions about that approach. But yeah. So then it is taken as another example of the global inequities that we have, that people In low income countries have less chance to access these vaccines than the people in high income countries. Yeah.

Okay. 

Jones: And you detailed along with your colleague Dr. Sylvia Brent that, the purported agenda of these things seems to be like, you just said this equality argument, but when you actually look [00:08:00] at the nitty gritty details of these conventions, it becomes clear that there’s, Okay.

A much more surveillance based national security based agenda here. And you guys have gone into how this is called the global health security doctrine. And it has some interesting origins. It’s became most prominent, I think, as you noted after nine 11 and the anthrax attacks. And there’s this thing called the one health policy or bio surveillance that’s.

Pretty much makes up the whole idea of the One Health policy. So if you could go into what is the global health security doctrine and how is it manifesting in these new conventions? 

Müller: Yeah, in the end, if you look at the COVID response, it was already quite prominent there. This global health security doctrine, and the reason for that is, as you said, that it is already ingrained in the international health regulations and that was because 

Jones: of the 1995 to [00:09:00] 2005 revision process.

Müller: Exactly. So at that time, there was a big revision of the of the international health regulations. These health regulations really were very, had very limited scope of application. So they only applied to three really serious diseases, infectious diseases like Ebola and I think yellow fever, and I don’t remember the third one very specific, very diseases.

And at that time, then they were reformed. And for example, this notion of a public health emergency of international concern so that that an outbreak of an of disease can be declared an health emergency. And so the scope of application was massively extended. They basically 

Jones: made it so that the director general could declare that a public health emergency of international concern was happening.

Thank you. And that, in effect, all of these emergency measures would be recommended, and a lot of times, Probably almost all the time implemented without the approval of any body within the World [00:10:00] Health Organization at all, right? 

Müller: There is a the Director general appoints a so called emergency committee When he declares this, health emergency and he’s advised by that committee but There’s no obligation for the Director General to actually follow the advice of that emergency committee.

So that was, for example, the case when the monkeypox health emergency was declared. The committee advised against that declaration, but the, um, the Director General still decided that it is a health emergency and therefore it should be declared as a public health emergency of international concern.

But a bit more on this global health security doctrine is really When you think about it, it’s really, it starts from the understanding that an outbreak of an infectious disease is treated like a so to say, like a military adversary or enemy. So [00:11:00] you you understand pathogens, especially those with the pandemic potential as a security risk.

And then, so the main aim of this global health security doctrine is actually to minimize these yeah, so called biological risks of these pathogens and the infectious diseases. And then that leads it to combine two fields that were separate, separated before so health and security.

And so it brings together these biohazard and biowarfare mitigation strategies and also, yeah, standard military operation procedures and combines them with traditional medical field so communicable disease prevention and containment. And that was particularly Prominent in the so called all hazards approach that is that this global health security doctrine adopts as well.

So it uses the same prevention [00:12:00] and control strategies to address disease outbreaks, no matter whether this disease outbreaks has a natural cause. Or it’s due to biowarfare, or bioterrorism, or even laboratory accidents. And, yeah, so there, it comes from that type of thinking that you classify this, these outbreaks of a disease as a health emergency.

And then you need to take medical and non medical countermeasures to, to address them. And so you have specific countermeasures that are preferred by this global health security doctrine, and that is, for example yeah, curfews or mass quarantine, which is, yeah, nowadays called lockdown, or you can have also this mass testing contact tracing, and risk communication, which is yeah, information control in the end.

Then when it comes to the to the medical countermeasures the preferred countermeasures are [00:13:00] these is the fast track development of uh, emergency licensed therapeutics and also vaccines, and actually vaccines in particular, which is quite interesting. And that again, becomes understandable from the fact that it comes from the bio warfare.

Context as well. So yeah, I’m really not an expert in bio warfare, but what I’ve been reading recently is really that the rapid mass vaccination is considered one of the most effective medical countermeasures if you have a bio weapons attack, because it’s assumed that there’s no effective medical treatment for the health damage that is done by these bio weapons.

Jones: Which is interesting to know because we’re now being told that these viruses that are apparently resulting from zoonotic origins, like the official narrative of COVID and now the One Health policy is also mandating that there’s all these, this surveillance that takes place between the human [00:14:00] animal level.

So basically the implication is there. We want to be on top of any viruses that emerge. Zoonotically, we’re being told that we need to respond in the exact same to those potential pandemic viruses in the exact same way that we were advised to respond previously to bio weapons, which would be the result of gain of function research, right?

Müller: Exactly, but this is the all hazards approach. So no matter where the disease comes from, you always have the same the same response. Even if it’s Even if it’s a natural outbreak, you still respond to it in the way as you would as if it were a bioweapon. And, yeah, the other interesting thing is concerning this global health security doctrine and especially the focus on vaccines, is also that if you have bioweapons research That usually goes hand in hand with vaccine research.

And the reason for that is that you want to prevent these so called blowbacks when you really engage in bio [00:15:00] warfare. So in order to prevent that the, yeah the bio weapons that you might deploy harm your own troops or even your own civilian population, you would need to have vaccines first or together with these bioweapons to, to use them together with these bioweapons.

And then as you observed, it’s then transposed through the global health security doctrine to all sorts of pandemic prevention and preparedness activities, including those that occur naturally. So that’s where it comes from. And there’s, yeah, it always goes well on the WHO websites.

You’ll find a lot of talk about this health security agenda as well. And also in, in domestic documents at the European Union level. Yeah, and this really, this doctrine, if you read through these draft treaties and the draft amendments to the, um, IHR, so the International [00:16:00] Health Regulations, that this global health security doctrine also dominates many of these proposed amendments and the, yeah, the reforms in general.

So I could give you some examples if that’s helpful. Yeah, go 

Jones: ahead. 

Müller: Okay. So the first one we already touched on it, is the declaration of this public health emergency of international concern. So the director general of the WHO, he already under the current, iHR can declare this public health emergency when there’s an unusual outbreak of an infectious disease somewhere and there’s allegedly a risk that it is will have international consequences or spread internationally.

And then once the director general has declared this public health emergency of international concern or In short, fake. It then has, this has numerous legal and practical consequences. And now, under the discussed amendments of the IHR, there is now the aim to extend the powers of the Director General to actually [00:17:00] declare these fakes.

For example one of the amendments now suggests that they should also be able to declare something that is now called an, what is it, early action alert. So this is somehow a situation that is not fake yet, but could become one. And then there’s another suggestion where the that the Director General should also be able to declare a pandemic emergency, which just seems to be something like a super fake or very very grave fake.

It’s unclear from the amendments what exactly the legal consequences would be from these if you declare an early action alert and what the legal consequences are from the from declaring a pandemic emergency. But yeah, what is clear is that if you, of course, if you extend the situations that can qualify as a fake, Then, of course, also the legal consequences that [00:18:00] follow from that, or the practical consequences that increases too.

That, yeah, that apply after the declaration has been made. And so some, one of the consequences, of course, that the Director General can make recommendations to states and yeah, to states to adopt medical and non medical countermeasures. Yeah, and also, 

Jones: Implement and also issue emergency use listing for medical products that have not gone through the typical testing and regulatory processes that it would take to get them developed.

Not that is one thing. 

Müller: Yes, that is one thing, but before that, I could also note that, for example now the, one of the amendments of the IHR that I discussed right now also foresee that now the Director General should have the right to, or can also recommend certain health products or pandemic products [00:19:00] directly.

So that was one of the amendments that You should be able to recommend certain products directly to yeah, to address these public health emergencies for global use. And that can also link, yeah, to your observation that these products usually are these products that are very quickly developed that didn’t go through the normal testing and get these emergency authorization.

Usually that can happen at the domestic level if the state has the legal framework to yeah, authorize these medical products on a, yeah, usually preliminary basis, emergency basis and then that they are used nonetheless even though they have not been. Fully tested because of the emergency that is then usually justified that you argue, okay, there’s such a great danger and we need to take a risk even using these products that [00:20:00] have not been fully tested for effectiveness and safety.

Now what you mentioned was the emergency use listing procedure that is a procedure that is developed by the WHO directly. So through that procedure, the WHO basically itself offers an emergency use list. It’s called listing because it’s not directly an authorization. But it Kind of checks these medical products that have not been fully licensed during a health emergency.

And then if it has offered them or given them this emergency use listing, they can be distributed Worldwide, for example, through institutions like COVAX, which was done during the COVID. Which is part of 

Jones: the World Health Organization. 

Müller: Yeah it’s one of their, at the time of their public private partnerships through which the COVID vaccines were distributed.

Over the, especially in countries that actually do [00:21:00] not have the domestic procedures to grant these emergency authorizations. They are common in the U. S. and in the European Union and in some other countries, but not all countries have that that procedure to grant these emergency use listings.

And therefore, the WHO basically does it for these countries and then they can, they, they use these, um, procedures in an, during an emergency. But, yeah, the important point is that this procedure is triggered once the public health emergency is declared By the W. H. O. 

Jones: Yeah. And so for some people listening, they might be a little bit confused because they might be thinking, why would the World Health Organization be interested in, um, fast tracking?

Because basically what the, this fast track Emergency use authorization. For example, with the COVID vaccine, I think it took around 300 something days to develop because it was given emergency [00:22:00] use listing from the World Health Organization and then emergency use authorization from the US government.

And I forget the name of the name of the same law in the EU, but right. That’s what allowed it to be developed so quickly. And to, not go through the proper testing that vaccines are normally supposed to go through. They normally take 10 to 15 years to develop. This one’s less than one year.

I believe. I think it was, I think it was 326 days. I could be wrong. And so it might help to understand that a lot of the, a lot of the private public private partnerships that, uh, we’re working to distribute the vaccine and do research and development on medical countermeasures for the World Health Organization during cove it are pushing for these emergency use authorization programs in the private sector, like Sepi, for example, is pushing for this 100 day vaccine development initiative.

I wanted to ask you what exactly are these public private partnerships and is [00:23:00] there financial corruption at play here? Are there conflicts of interest in terms of the work that they’re doing for the who the potential ways that they’re lobbying the who to favor what they’re pushing for in the private sector and how is it playing out?

I know that you focus more on the legality of it, but if you could just give us a brief summary of how does, how is CEPI involved and how is GAVI involved and how are they working with the WHO? 

Müller: In general, this global health security doctrine and the way it shapes the entire legal framework and also the programs that the WHO is carrying out is very product focused.

The, yeah, in the end, the only, only, especially also when you read the draft treaty, it’s very much about pandemic products. So the idea is that you can solve a global pandemic by [00:24:00] yeah, giving everyone a vaccine on the entire globe. We saw it during the COVID pandemic. And of course, there’s a lot of interest in that in, from the pharmaceutical industry.

in that approach in and of itself. That you think you can solve a pandemic or end a pandemic only by vaccinating the entire world population. That can be, of course, very lucrative for any pharmaceutical enterprise. Now and yeah, all the different building blocks or all the different aspects that you need to make the work, to make this work, are included in the pandemic treaty.

So we already said the emergency calling an emergency. Then, also, we have this term, biosurveillance system. States should actually build laboratories, [00:25:00] find the pathogens that have potential to become a pandemic or cause a disease that might then become a pandemic. And of course for the pharmaceutical industry, it’s interesting to have access to these pathogens and then do research and development which is also very much promoted by the By the treaty.

So right the treaties 

Jones: actually mandate that the states have Programs to basically do constant research and development 

Müller: exactly on those 

Jones: vaccines. Sorry on those pathogens that they’re surveilling 

Müller: So, that feeds all into that. The treaty basically obliges states to build capacities to do research and development on these pathogens with pandemic potential.

They should also build their capacities to Carry out clinical trials pretty quickly. And usually all this is triggered once the WHO director general declared the the public health emergency [00:26:00] of international concern. Which they’re, 

Jones: which those treaties also seek to broaden the ways in which, 

Müller: yeah. So that and then of course also yeah, we mentioned the emergency use authorization that is also pushed by the treaty. So actually at the domestic level, states should should adopt the regular, develop a regulatory framework that allows them to permit these emergency use authorizations of these investigational medical products during a fake.

So that does. another part of it, and also the rapid distribution and production first production and then distribution of these products. So there are also treaty provisions and also amendments to the international health regulations. That obliged states to increase their production capacities, for example, for these pandemic products.

Again, that can be recommended by the WHO Director General as a countermeasure [00:27:00] against the fake, so to say, or the pandemic. And Yeah, then the distribution should also be promoted and organized by the WHO. Now what do, how are the these public private partnerships involved in that? So there’s various ways.

I think the most straightforward one is It’s probably CEPI, which is the yeah, they are primarily involved in this research and development. So this is the Coalition of Epidemic Preparedness and Innovation, the CEPI it’s a public private partnership and they, yeah, on their website they announce that they want to develop or work towards developing vaccine within, 100 days in the future.

So there’s a lot of funding going into pandemic preparedness and response activities these days. And the WHO also has other programs through which it, yeah, promotes research and [00:28:00] development on these pandemic pathogens with pandemic potential. Yeah. And much of that goes through CEPI.

I can only imagine that there’s a lot of this funding that goes into pandemic preparedness and response in particular to research and development will go through CEPI and through CEPI then be distributed to various pharmaceutical companies and research institutes. Yeah, there’s other ways in which the, these, um, public private partnerships or pub private actors are involved in the WHO.

For example, if you just look at the budget of the WHO, there’s only It’s now really, it’s clear that private funders have considerable influence over that budget. So it’s only 20 percent of the WHO budget is yeah, is made up from regular contribution of the member states. And so this 20 percent of the budget that the WHO can actually decide what it does with it.

But all the rest of it, so 80 percent comes from, [00:29:00] it may also come from states, but it also comes from private funders, from international organizations, or from Gavi or Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation or, yeah, also the Wellcome Trust there’s a lot. Also, some direct contribution from pharmaceutical companies, even though it’s rather small if you compare with the funding that comes from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Jones: So the funding that comes from there, that 80 percent compared to that 20%, they, that funding, The people that donate, or the entities, the institutions that donate that money have a little bit more say in terms of what the WHO actually does with that money is what you’re saying too, right? Yeah, exactly.

So 

Müller: this 80 percent is year marked usually, so it’s given to specific projects. Yeah, it would be interesting to make a detailed analysis of where the money goes, all that, yeah. But it it’s clear that, for example, over the last 10 years, there was a the emergency preparedness [00:30:00] program, or pandemic preparedness program, has emergencies.

Yeah, I have gotten, become, yeah, got much more funding than ever before. And now there’s a lot of debate of where you, yeah, you get more money into the system through the World Bank. Some sort of pandemic fund they tried to set up at the World Bank. Yeah. Then other influence, I can, I see that when I do my research on these various WHO committees, you always see that the, Gavi usually is an observer in many of these committees, including in these committees that give these emergency use listings on vaccine safety and these kinds of committees, the they are always there.

an observer, and of course you have the personal connections, you could say. There’s many scientists that sit on these, um, expert committees that also, work for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation [00:31:00] sometime before, or they their research is At some universities or any other institutions they work might be funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation or by the pharmaceutical industry directly.

And then of course there might be people who Workforce first for one of these public private partnerships. Then for pharmaceutical company and then for the W. H. O. So there’s these 

Jones: so they’re directly involved in who commit. So basically, there’s these public. Sorry, these private funders that are funding the who the majority of the who’s funding and then they’re sitting on committees and making policy documents and initiatives with the who that are pushing agendas such as this Basically, what is this huge emergency deregulation program through this emergency use authorization, right?

Müller: Yeah I would say that, that is certainly my impression if I look at how I have, I’ve not done a systematic analysis of all these persons who that, that [00:32:00] are actually involved in all these committees and where they have been working before, but they certainly always read the same names.

And the best example is probably Jeremy Farrar, which who is who’s has been at the Wellcome Trust before and now is the chief scientific advisor at the WHO. 

Jones: And that’s a good example right there because he went, he was at the Wellcome Trust and then that’s a huge, that’s a big funder of the WHO.

And then he co founded CEPI. I believe. And then CEPI has been funded to the tune of 300 million dollars by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. CEPI is also involved in the World Health Organization’s vaccine distribution program, COVAX. If I’m not mistaken, and then Jeremy Farrar, who is working with the World Health Organization through these private companies, now becomes the World Health Organization Chief Scientist, right?

That’s that’s a pretty good example right there. [00:33:00] And then And on top of that you have Gavi also working to working in the Kovacs department of the who, which is the vaccine distribution company. Gavi is founded by Bill Gates, who invested 10 billion in the vaccines and made 200 billion off the vaccines after he sold his stocks, who’s having a direct role in the global distribution of these vaccines through the World Health Organization, right?

That is that financial corruption to you? Of course Yeah, 

Müller: Okay one point Which also links again back to the security doctrine is the information control because if you see that Bill gates or the bill and melinda gates foundation also funds a lot of Newspapers, especially they’re reporting on global health issues or global development.

It’s pretty obvious that there’s some conflict of interest. [00:34:00] 

Jones: Yeah and beyond that like another example of how this global health security doctrine existed during the COVID 19 pandemic is Google and Oracle were listed in Operation Warp Speed, which was the Trump administration’s and then later the Biden administration’s program to basically their emergency use authorization program to do like fast tracked rapid clinical trials and development of an investigational or experimental vaccine.

And at the same time that Google and Oracle were being tasked with monitoring the side effects of these vaccines, Whitney Webb, this report she’s a journalist. Her website is unlimited hangout. She’s done. Good reporting on this. I can’t remember, she has a whole series on Operation Warp Speed, but as they’re being tasked with surveilling the side effects and if people take their vaccines basically like a post vaccine surveillance program, they’re censoring anything that is [00:35:00] labeled, that they decide is labeled disinformation related to the pandemic.

On Google related like YouTube, for example like just, this is going up on YouTube, so I should specify according to, YouTube, just so we don’t get pulled down the vaccines are safe and effective and. They slow the spread of the virus, I have to say that or else I think we’ll get in trouble, but right there, that, that’s another example of how this information control is already taking place and now it’s, and now through the World Health Organization, through the International Health Regulation amendments and the World Health Organization, CA plus treaty they’re just further entrenching it into legal doctrine, right?

Which potentially and potentially obligating countries to actually censor things, right? Through international law. 

Müller: Yes, exactly. So this is one another yeah, building block you can say of this global health security agenda is that you need to control the information. Maybe in warfare, that is normal, if you have a war, you have a lot of censorship going on.

So again, it’s transported [00:36:00] to the disease control then, and yeah, you have Provisions in the draft provisions in the treaty and also under the IHR amendments that states should ensure that yeah, alleged medical misinformation is removed. Or censored during the health emergency that has been declared by the WHO and his emergency committee.

Now, it’s not really spelled out who determines what qualifies as mis and disinformation and how that should be done in the treaty. But again, it it has been done during the the, during the COVID pandemic. And you gave an example and the WHO certainly has been involved in that quite directly because it has this program on its website.

You can find it there it’s called infodemic management program. Where it’s yeah, it cooperated with governments and big tech companies to. Yeah, to this pre [00:37:00] bunking, debunking and censorship of of anything that it regarded as dismiss or false information. And usually that was information that or opinion that questioned the medical or non medical countermeasures that the WHO recommended.

In response to that COVID Emergency. And yeah, there are draft provisions, though I must say that in the recent version of the treaty, it has been toned down. 

Jones: Okay. 

Müller: They don’t have the words missing, disinformation in there anymore, but it’s called risk. Communication which in the end is pretty much the same and you still have it in the amendments to the international health regulation, even though it’s like enhanced 

Jones: interrogation, right?

Müller: Exactly. So it’s even in the amendments to the IHR, it’s hidden. Because these amendments have an annex, which spell out certain so called core [00:38:00] capacities of states that they should build. So this is, for example, the surveillance system, or they should build core capacities to have, I don’t know do pandemic preparedness table top exercises and this kind of thing.

These are core capacities that are spelled out in an annex to the international health regulations. And one of the additions that should be now added is this infodemic management or risk communication capacities that states should also build. So it’s disappeared a little bit because of course there was quite a lot of criticism from.

certain critical civil society organizations and people yeah, and I think to some extent that is why they toned it down a little bit which I did also with some other provisions, like with a genetic sequencing capacities that states should build. And so it, it has been toned down a little bit still, we don’t know.

When, if it’s adopted and it’s implemented, then [00:39:00] yeah, you don’t really know what comes out of it. 

Jones: And just to be clear, the genetic sequencing stuff seems to have been toned down, not because of any concern, not because of the WHO taking criticisms from people like you, from experts like you and saying, Oh, this is a little bit, invasive but instead to, because there’s this debate that’s being had where the larger countries are saying we need to be able to basically have patents on these investigational drugs that in this one health surveillance system the poorer countries would be providing data for through their own biomedical surveillance systems.

And then those countries want better access to them. Just one, one so I don’t know. Okay. So I haven’t read the latest version of the who, a CCA plus treaty. So you can tell me. Potentially this is still in it, but just here’s one quote, which I think like really shows how egregious, a lot of the infodemic stuff is it’s it, the who CA plus treaty [00:40:00] requires member states research and develop qual policy that will quote hinder adherence to public health and social measures, confidence, and uptake of vaccines, use of appropriate therapeutics and trust in science and government institutions, which sounds Pretty Orwellian to me.

And do you think that this this toning down of the language is potentially more dangerous because now you have this kind of before, if you read it, it’s there’s like that passage I just read, there’s a lot of stuff that sounds bad like that. And now you’re saying, presumably a lot of that stuff has been taken out or toned down.

But now is that kind of allowing it to potentially slip through the cracks easier to go unnoticed by people that might otherwise notice these things. 

Müller: Potentially, yeah, maybe, okay, those who really read it very superficially yeah, for them it’s if you really just, look for the word disinformation in the treaty, you will not find it anymore.

But the sentence that you just read is [00:41:00] pretty much still in it, so that you should conduct research. It says now that parties shall conduct research to inform policies on factors that hinder or strengthen adherence to public health and social measures in a pandemic. and trust in science and public health institution authorities and agencies.

So this is still there. It’s just called risk communication now. This is also, the ideas and potentially maybe there are some people who really believe that. I wouldn’t say that everybody has bad intention by doing that because they really think that it’s necessary to for the security of people, to actually censor these people who, I don’t know, question these health measures in order to protect people.

Maybe there are some people who are really convinced by that. I’m not, but um, yeah, so That is still in [00:42:00] there. And okay, with international treaties, it’s always, it always really depends on how they are implemented. Then in the end, there are also treaties that are not very well implemented and then don’t have much effect.

Because international law is not domestic law. It’s much harder to actually enforce it. But if it’s taken on by by states and they actually build these capacities at the domestic level and strengthen these infodemic I don’t know, agencies that they built up or integrated in their health ministries and you already see it.

There’s a lot of, new legislation That actually refers to mis and disinformation not only in the health context, but other contexts So Do you mean in the 

Jones: U. S. or or globally? In the European 

Müller: Union, for example, with the Digital Services Act you have that in there. And in the U. S. I [00:43:00] don’t really know, to be honest.

But there certainly will be some equivalent there. 

Jones: Um there was this anti Semitism bill, which was I don’t know if you heard about that, but, 

Müller: Not Yeah, 

Jones: anyways yeah, go, if you can continue, if you were going to keep talking, sorry for interrupting. 

Müller: Yeah it really depends on, on, on to what extent these things are taken up by states.

If it’s an international treaty, yeah, the WHO doesn’t have a police force and can actually enforce this this treaty. And also, still, the recommendations that the Director General makes to the states. They are not legally binding, so to say, but they can be followed nonetheless. You saw it during COVID.

These were not legally binding instructions that the the Director General gave to the states, but they nonetheless complied with it. 

Also because Many, much of these concepts actually come from the domestic level and have been internationalized, especially in [00:44:00] U. S., so this idea of the of the public health emergency comes from U.

S. law, and so it’s there already and then it will also be implemented there quite easily, and it’s the same in, in, in other countries. If it has been transposed to the domestic into the domestic law already, then it will also be that there’s yeah, that higher likelihood that it will be complied with.

And still, with these international treaties, there’s always depends a bit on the states and how they implement it and then how they develop what it Then means, uh, 

Jones: Yeah, definitely. And I wanted to ask you cause I think this is a pretty important part of the conventions.

So you’ve gone into the revision process and and. How the create or the, how the revision process and the way that it’s being conducted is in and of itself illegal by the, whose own [00:45:00] standards that it established for implementing new. Treaties and amendments to the World Health Organiza or to the World Health Organization because they’re being rushed through.

So even I mean it’s funny how this theme of rushing things through and fast tracking stuff is even carrying over into the implementation of these conventions. It’s not only the vaccine emergency use authorization, it’s also they’re fast tracking this process. You could attempt to answer, I don’t know if you’d have an answer, but why is this issue so urgent that the, who has to illegally implement it through rushing it and who’s, what and how did, how is this just practically speaking, like, how is it being rushed through and who’s leading that charge?

I understand that the U. S. Is influential in that way. 

Müller: The in terms of Did you mean the in terms of illegal the process is this? What’s the four months that you need to actually? 

Jones: Yes, [00:46:00] 

Müller: say the okay that is yeah, that is the provision of the current, international health regulations since article 55 paragraph 2 which says that if you want to amend the international health regulations you need to follow a specific process so all the amendments to that that the states should adopt at the World Health Assembly should be given to the states four months before the health assembly.

And the idea behind is quite reasonable because states need to check, okay, what do we agree on if we yeah, if we adopt these amendments. They have to check, for example, what that means for their domestic legal system, for do they need to build new institutions, do they need to make changes to their domestic law, do they need to allocate resources to actually finance the implementation of certain Amendments, which actually for the if these amendments to the international health regulations are adopted could mean that certain states need [00:47:00] to make quite a lot of big shifts in the allocation of their health budget towards pandemic preparedness and response to actually build this surveillance system.

So that is the idea behind this four month Rule that the states can actually check also with their parliaments, because in the World Health Assembly, it’s usually the exe executive that is represented there. So if they need to, under their internal domestic legal system, need to involve the parliament, they could yeah, that would be the chance in, within these four months to do that.

And but the working group that works on the amendments to the International Health Regulations decided that it will not will not, uh, stick to this four month rule and it’s actually still negotiating these amendments right now. So they do not comply with that rule. So now, why do they want to push it so quickly through I think they really want to [00:48:00] exploit this post COVID moment to push it through.

I think they are probably rightly a bit afraid that governments will lose interest in the pandemic preparedness and response agenda, because there’s so many crises. Going on. So then it’s war, then it’s climate change, then it’s I don’t know what. That is I think one thing they are afraid of, and then, of course, there’s also more criticism now of what has actually happened during COVID.

More questions are asked to what extent were these measures really effective? What were the broader consequences of these medical and non medical countermeasures that the WHO recommended? There has never been a really serious thorough, independent evaluation of these COVID measures. And as I said in the beginning, it’s always made the argument that you need more of what we did during COVID and not less in order to, um, have a better [00:49:00] outcome next time, but that it could be the opposite maybe if you would have a proper investigation, that would actually be the outcome.

So I think they probably a bit worried that if the demands become louder to actually conduct such an investigation. And maybe in some states it’s actually done at the domestic level though yeah, not really yet. So I think that is the, Another reason why they try to push it quite quickly and then also potentially political changes, especially in the U.

S. Who knows if Mr. Trump is re elected and decides to defund the WHO once more or or I don’t know, even leave it. You never know. Then it’s probably unlikely that the pandemic treaty and and the amendments will be adopted. That’s about it. I think 

Jones: Is Trump saying that he’s going to leave the World Health Organization?

I 

Müller: don’t know, but he did. He did he did stop funding it [00:50:00] at the beginning of 2020. It was a, when I don’t exactly remember, but there was a time when the U S did not pay its contributions to the WHO. And that was a decision from Trump. So you never know. And again, I think really they want to exploit this post COVID COVID moment because I think the longer you wait, the less likely it is that it will go through.

And also there’s a lot of skepticism also among some developing countries nowadays. Of course they, they, always argue that they want to push this equity and have access to these pandemic products. But if they don’t get this out of that treaty, then I don’t know to what extent they actually will keep, yeah, be kept on board of that.

Because in the end it’s very much driven by the countries that, are hosting these pharmaceutical, pharmaceutical [00:51:00] industry because as I said, this product focus is very much in the interest of the pharmaceutical industry. 

Jones: Like much of this policy originates from the military.

The military industrial complex or whatever you want to call it the deep state, there’s lots of names for it in the U. S. The I was, we were just talking about it before the interview, but the total information awareness program that was, that they tried to implement the U.

S. Government tried to implement after 9 11, but it was immediately labeled as insanely invasive. They just handed off a lot of those goals to private contractors like Palantir for example, and Palantir is a big is actually pretty involved in a lot of the COVID stuff, like the in Operation Warp Speed, for example.

And this whole One Health policy seems to be an evolution of the total information awareness. So I don’t know. I think if, unfortunately, I think that if the considering the military origins of this and how invested the Pentagon seems to be [00:52:00] in this I feel like they’ll probably get Trump’s mind right on the issue of he tries and he tries to be.

That’s just a, that’s just a prediction though. That’s take that with a grain of salt. So I wanted to ask you one last question because you, your last piece an opinion jurist, I think is the name of the publication. Yeah. You you and your call, you and Dr. Sylvia Berent, you guys explained how these documents incentivize gain of function research through this research and development aspect of the one health policy.

So again, for people that are listening, that are digesting all of this for the first time, it goes, we’re going to make it easier to declare a pandemic. We’re going to perform constant surveillance in preparation of pandemics or fikes, fakes public health emergencies of international concern. So that we can develop medical countermeasures in advance to fight these pathogens if they do turn into pandemics, which sounds like they’re saying we’re going to do gain of function research, right?

So if you could explain [00:53:00] how these documents, some of the provisions that incentivize gain of function research. 

Müller: Yeah, I think in the end you already said it. So if it’s if you increase, or if you oblige states to build these surveillance systems, so you find more pathogens with a potential, pandemic potential in the first place.

So if you search for these pathogens, you, you will find some especially when you follow this one health. Approach and also search for these pathogens at the interface of environment animal and human interface. Um, yeah. So you will find potentially more of these viruses with pandemic potential.

And then The other obligation that states have is to build these research and development capacities. So that means that you will have more research on these pathogens with pandemic [00:54:00] potential. And now the problem is that Some, at least, of this research with these pathogens is, falls into this gain of function category.

And gain of function, just to say what it means, is really that you use, the scientists use a variety of techniques to make these viruses more pathogenic. So to increase the severeness of the illness that they cause or that they make them more transmissible. And yeah, the common justification for that is that you should Get ahead of nature and then, yeah, predict the pandemic threats and then develop also a vaccine against these threats.

Now the problem is that it’s of course very dangerous this type of gain of function research that has also been recognized by concerned scientists for quite a long time and so the first danger is that it if you have these bioengineered viruses that they can escape from the [00:55:00] laboratories and in fact that is actually happening quite frequently and of course there’s also mounting evidence that Tsarskov 2 itself originated from a laboratory in Wuhan.

And then the second problem is that Gain of function research also falls into this dual category of dual use research. So that means that you can also turn ordinary viruses or bacteria, because gain of function research is also done with bacteria, into biological weapons. And Now, that can of course be problematic under international law.

For example, the Geneva Gas Protocol and also the 1972 Bioweapons Convention, they prohibited this type of gain of function research for the purpose of developing offensive or defensive bioweapons. For example, it can be problematic, as you have it in the [00:56:00] U. S., that you basically have the same funding mechanisms for defensive bioweapons research and research on natural pandemics.

So that can, of course, be quite problematic under this bioweapons convention. Now if you look at the bioweapons conventions, unfortunately, I would say unfortunately, has this loophole because it doesn’t prohibit this gain of function research for prophylactic, protective, and other peaceful purposes.

So it’s very difficult to to control because you can always make the argument that’s for prophylactic protective or peaceful purposes this type of research. So then you would have 

Jones: to in order for anyone to get in trouble for doing gain of function research, you would have to be able to Prove intention like of the whole program basically that it’s an offensive by a weapon or 

Müller: defensive.

Okay It’s difficult to a weapon is a weapon. You can use it that way [00:57:00] or that way. It’s yeah Still it’s you can always make the argument. It’s for prophylactic purposes. However, if you really fund both from the same pot. It is already quite clear that it also goes into defensive bioweapons research.

There you could argue, of course, that this is the line is crossed there. 

Jones: It’s like what, yeah. Sorry, go ahead. 

Müller: No, my opinion about the entire process also with the pandemic treaty and the IHR amendments, I think it would, if you really want to make a difference and prevent future pandemics.

I think you would need to reform the Bioweapons Convention, close that loophole and completely prohibit all types of gain of function research for whatever purposes, even if it’s for prophylactic, peaceful, or protective purposes. Because, at least from what I’ve been reading recently, there’s also, it’s quite clear that the gain of function [00:58:00] research, even for peaceful purposes, has never resulted in any development of a beneficial medical product so far, and the dangers seem to be really, um, really high.

So one would need to push for a reform of the bioweapons convention, close that loophole there, and also build an independent institution that international institution that is capable of monitoring compliance. Of course, that’s very difficult, but the Chemical Weapons Convention, for example, has such a mechanism which the Bioweapons Convention does not have.

So it would be one way to move forward and actually prevent new Pandemics in the future. 

Jones: But then we wouldn’t have all of these fun emergency use authorized vaccines that we get to take every couple of months, so there’s the problem there. 

Müller: Unrealistic, of course, my suggestion, but yeah.

Jones: No. Yeah. You’re obviously [00:59:00] right. That, that’s what makes me, that’s what makes you question. I don’t know. What are the real intentions here? If you could just do it, you said, and then that would reduce the risk of pandemics right there. But anyways, I wanted to thank you. Ray for coming on and talking as always you’re a, a huge expert on this issue.

So it’s always a pleasure. And if you could let people know where to read the work that you’ve already done, I know you have a a peer reviewed article that you’ve written. Or maybe more than one. I know I’ve read one and two articles at Opinion Juris. And if you’re working on anything in the future regarding the subject or anything else.

Müller: Yeah, they are spread everywhere, so it’s not collected on one website. Yeah the Opinion Juris is it’s an international law blog. The peer reviewed article, unfortunately. Difficult to get but because it’s usually behind a pay wall But i’m always happy to share it with anyone who’s interested.

Yeah 

Jones: Great. Thanks again for coming on and we’ll probably have to talk soon because we probably could have talked [01:00:00] for another hour about This but I think that’s just a great conversation. So thank you. 

Müller: Yeah. Thank you as well And thank you for inviting me and having me on 

Jones: Of course, anytime.

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Max Jones

Max Jones is the producer for The Chris Hedges Report, and a staff writer and video producer for ScheerPost. After graduating summa cum laude from the University of Southern California in 2023, where he studied communications and screenwriting, his journalism has been published in Unlimited Hangout, ScheerPost and republished at Popular Resistance. He has been featured on the Kim Iversen Show and Redacted with Clayton and Natali Morris. He has also interviewed a wide range of figures such as John Kiriakou, Ray McGovern and David Hundeyin. He continues to write fictional stories for the big screen, has directed an independent short film and produced multiple viral videos for both The Chris Hedges Report and ScheerPost.

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