WHO pandemic treaty
On 29th March 2021, Prime minister Boris Johnson talked about a WHO pandemic treaty. He said "We are committed to ensuring universal and equitable access to safe, efficacious and affordable vaccines, medicines and diagnostics for this and future pandemics."
and he went on ... " To that end, we believe that nations should work together towards a new international treaty for pandemic preparedness and response. Such a renewed collective commitment would be a milestone in stepping up pandemic preparedness at the highest political level. It would be rooted in the constitution of the World Health Organisation"
On 24th May 2022, Therese Coffey MP for Suffolk (photo above) gave this answer to a constituent who asked about the proposed treaty:
"The COVID-19 pandemic has been one of the greatest challenges to the established international orders since the Second World War. A global threat that has required Global solutions borne out of global cooperation it has been immensely heartening to have seen the People's and Nations of the world pull together as they have. I pay tribute to them all everywhere.
As in the late 1940s where to avert a repeat of the cataclysm of total War , World leaders came together to establish the multilateral system we have today, a similar effort is required on the part of the world leaders to strengthen preparedness for potential future pandemics. The Prime Minister, writing with other world leaders last year , suggested that the international community should commit to producing a new international treaty for pandemic preparedness and response. such a treaty would aim to foster greatly enhanced co-operation in order to better protect the UK from the health social and economic impacts of pandemics.
Discussions are ongoing at the World Health Organisation to this end. The UK Government wants to reach agreement on its priority areas such as improving transparency , timely data sharing and supporting equitable access to vaccines and treatments
I appreciate that you have some concerns about this . However, the health secretary has personally assured that the Government will not support any treaty which compromises the UK sovereignty. There is nothing in the proposed treaty that would impact our ability to take decisions about national lockdownsor other measures of this nature at the national level.
Once adopted international treaties only become binding on the UK when ratified by Parliament in accordance with our constitutional process. No international can by itself change UK law. If changes to the law are necessary then a treaty could not be ratified until domestic legislation , agreed by Parliament , was put in place. The government will not support any treaty that is not in our interests or which compromises the UK sovereignty "
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This blog is part of the Blyth Valley website