He WHO pays the piper

A GOV.UK press release on the 20th May 2025 announced; "UK adopts historic Pandemic Agreement". The press release states, "The British people, our NHS and the economy will be better protected against future global health threats thanks to a new World Health Organization Pandemic Agreement adopted by the UK today.."

However, many questions are being raised from multiple sources over the lack of consultation and public debate, and important concerns are being raised over the top-down imposition and the nature of the stated intention. The US has withdrawn it's membership from the WHO and specifically expressed reservations about the WHO's Pandemic Agreement.

Benefit of corporate interest

The Director for Health and Human Services Secretary warns that the WHO, "has become mired in bureacratic bloat, entrenched paradigms, conflicts of interest and international power politics". Also, The WHO has also, "failed to maintain an organisation characterised by transparency and fair governance by and for its member states. The WHO often acts like it has forgotten that it's members must remain accountable to their own citizens and not to transnational or corporate interests'.

Total Health has previously reported on the concerns that the WHO has been too biased by the interests of political parties and in particular by China. Dr. Tedros has been criticised by some for his praise of Chinese leader Xi Jinping's handling of the pandemic in its early stages. He and the WHO were found to be parroting Chinese Government pronouncements.

All very cosy

Lawyer Molly Kingsley, author of The Accountability Deficit and The Children’s Inquiry has pointed out the WHO's lack of democratic respect and accountability, and its problematic funding structure. She says, "The agreement also requires member states to strengthen their national "expedited regulatory review" and "emergency regulatory authorisation" processes for vaccines and other pandemic products. This stands to normalise the fast-tracked approvals processes the Covid vaccine manufacturers benefitted from, and is all very cosy because many of the same pharmaceutical industry actors who stand to benefit from these fast-tracked processes are also backers of the WHO".

Anyway, despite the not inconsiderable concerns, the WHO Pandemic Agreement has now been passed. There was no parliamentary vote, no public debate, and no referendum. With thanks to journalist, Lewis Brackpool, here is a summary that explains what was agreed and why concerns about sovereignty, accountability, and global governance are growing.

Approval without domestic scrutiny

On 20th May 2025, WHO member states adopted the organisation’s first international Pandemic Agreement at the 78th World Health Assembly in Geneva. The treaty was adopted by consensus, not a formal vote, which means that governments, including the UK, signalled approval without domestic scrutiny.

The treaty is designed to address failings exposed by how countries, "handled COVID-19." It outlines legal commitments to:

• Share pathogen samples & genetic data,
• Distribute vaccines & therapeutics “equitably”,
• Strengthen international surveillance,
• Comply with WHO-led emergency declarations, and
• Develop global digital health certification systems.

Provides WHO with broad scope over most government policy

However, this agreement is not limited to pandemic response. It's based on the WHO’s “One Health” framework, which views human, animal, and environmental health as interconnected. Critics (rightly) argue this broadens the WHO’s scope, allowing it to influence food systems, climate policy, agriculture, and land use under the guise of “pandemic prevention.”

While the WHO cannot override national law, the treaty creates binding international obligations. Governments may use it to justify emergency laws or sweeping public health powers, while shielding decisions behind the language of “international compliance” or “global coordination.”

The WHO is not a democratic institution. Its Director-General, Tedros Ghebreyesus, is not elected by citizens, but appointed via a process dominated by diplomatic negotiations between member states. His past controversies, including handling of the early COVID outbreak and ties to China, have fuelled concerns about impartiality.

He WHO pays the piper

The WHO’s top funders are not primarily governments. As of 2023, its largest contributors included:

• Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
• GAVI Alliance
• UNICEF
• The European Commission
• Germany and
• US Private foundations

.. now shape global public health priorities - without any electoral mandate.

A global market monopoly

Among the more contentious provisions of the treaty are proposals to implement a Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing (PABS) system. This would allow WHO to access pathogen samples from any country and redistribute pharmaceutical products under “equitable” frameworks — potentially overriding domestic vaccine supply chains.

Tyranny masquerading as altruism?

The treaty also encourages states to adopt digital health documentation systems, which could evolve into permanent digital IDs tied to vaccination or health status. While presented as public health tools, such systems have been heavily criticised by civil liberties groups as intrusive, coercive, and open to mission creep.

Several countries abstained or objected during the drafting phase. These include:

• Poland
• Russia 
• Italy 
• Iran and 
• Slovakia

Their stated concerns include loss of national sovereignty, lack of legal clarity, and the risk of unelected institutions imposing policy.

Keeping it all hush hush

In the UK, there has been virtually no parliamentary debate over the treaty. No formal statement has been made by the Prime Minister or Health Secretary. Despite the agreement’s long-term implications, the UK has participated in negotiations quietly and hence bypassing public scrutiny.

The adoption of this treaty reflects a broader trend: The shift from nation-state governance to transnational managerialism. Under this model, decisions affecting millions are increasingly shaped by technocrats, NGOs, foundations, and UN agencies - none of whom are directly accountable to voters. 

Control

As Lewis Blackpool further points out, "This is not a conspiracy theory. It is a structural change in how global policy is made - particularly in moments of crisis. What COVID began, the WHO treaty formalises: Emergency governance, centralised authority, and the use of global health as a gateway to broader control".

If democratic governments can enter binding international agreements on pandemic policy without consulting their citizens, then who governs in a crisis? The answer, increasingly, is: Those you cannot remove from office.

The WHO Pandemic Agreement is a landmark. Not just in public health, but in global governance. It centralises authority, weakens national sovereignty, and embeds unelected influence at the heart of crisis response. The public was never asked.

The process of WHO policy ratification from here

However, from a legal process stance, Molly Kingsley says that it will be at least two or three years before the agreement can come into force due to a contentious schedule on the sharing of pathogen information, (i.e. the stuff China didn’t do), which has to be negotiated. Only once that is done will a process of signing and ratification take place which itself could take a year or more.

In the UK the agreement will need to be laid before Parliament and The House of Commons which in principle has the power to delay ratification. However, the reality is this is that delays are increasingly unlikely: for that to happen there would need to be a sufficient number of MPs mobilised to provoke a debate and to carry a vote to delay.

Given the Government's majority in the House this does not seem like a plausible scenario. the revised Pandemic Agreement needs to be read together with the International Health Regulations (IHR) amendments.

Egregious affront to principles

Molly Kingsley says, "If there is a silver lining in all of this it is that, taken together, the two documents have been significantly watered down from the original drafts tabled in 2023 which were an egregious affront to principles not only of national autonomy, but individual liberties and human rights".

As Molly Kingsley states, "However, the WHO remains a deeply flawed organisation whose authoritarian approach to public health remains fundamentally inconsistent with principles of liberty, freedom and childhood".