AN IRISH PETITION with more than 335,000 signatures has falsely claimed that the World Health Organisation can declare pandemic emergencies and enforce restrictive measures.

The petition asks Taoiseach Simon Harris to withdraw Ireland from adopting amendments to International Health Regulations – but mischaracterises what those regulations do.

The WHO recently amended the International Health Regulations (IHR), which initially focussed on limiting diseases such as typhus, cholera, plague, and yellow fever, but have since expanded to also require countries to be able to test for diseases and quickly notify hospitals, ports, and the international community of dangerous outbreaks.

“The amendments to the International Health Regulations will bolster countries’ ability to detect and respond to future outbreaks and pandemics by strengthening their own national capacities, and coordination between fellow States, on disease surveillance, information sharing and response,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general, has said.

The WHO said in a press release that these new regulations “build on lessons learned from several global health emergencies, including the Covid-19 pandemic” and should help detect disease outbreaks and strengthen global responses to future public health emergencies.  

However, some commentators, including the makers of the Irish petition, believe that these updates contain sinister mechanisms.

“This document claims that the World Health Organization (WHO) can declare pandemic emergencies and enforce restrictive measures during crises, such as mandatory vaccines, travel bans, information control, and more surveillance on you and your family,” the petition hosted on CitizenGO reads.

The Washington Post describes CitizenGO as an “ultraconservative Spain-based petition mill” and the platform’s homepage contains petitions based on dubious theories, many with hundreds of thousands of supposed signatures.

It goes on to claim that “Ireland has only 10 months to opt out of the International Health Regulations (IHR) before it becomes legally binding”.

So what are the IHR? And can the WHO enforce “mandatory vaccines, travel bans, information control, and more surveillance”?

International Health Regulations

The IHR and their amendments, which are accessible online define “countries’ rights and obligations in handling public health events and emergencies that have the potential to cross borders”, according to the WHO.

The regulations include the duties that countries have to monitor disease outbreaks and inform the international community about certain health emergencies.

In July, representatives of the 194 countries in the WHO agreed to IHR amendments to “strengthen mechanisms for our collective protections and preparedness against outbreak and pandemic emergency risks”, according to Dr Abdullah Assiri, a co-chair of the working group responsible for the amendments.

The amendments were “adopted by consensus, i.e. without a vote” the WHO website explains, though states may defer or opt out of them before they come into force, 12 months after their official notification by the Director-General to all states.

This has yet to happen as translations are still being finalised: the petition naming Simon Harris against the IHR falsely claims that “Ireland has until April 2025 to reject these changes by sending an official letter to the WHO”.

“The amendments were not rammed through,” a WHO spokesperson told The Journal. “In fact, more than two years of intergovernmental negotiations were undertaken to negotiate the amendments.”

Reading through the amendments (outlined in bold here), none mention giving the WHO the power to enforce “mandatory vaccines, travel bans, information control, and more surveillance”, nor anything like that.

All mentions of the word “vaccine” in the amendments describe the proper format of a certain type of certificate.

The only mention of travel in the amendments is to emphasise that WHO recommendations should take into account the need to “facilitate international travel”.

The IHR does mention “surveillance” of data for public health purposes, though it explicitly says that this is not the responsibility of the WHO, but of individual states.

“The WHO does not have the authority to enforce such measures on States Parties,” a spokesperson for the WHO told The Journal in response to the claims made on the petition.

“The WHO provides recommendations and advice to respond to and control health risks and events. It is up to States Parties to implement these recommendations in the manner they see fit.”

The Journal has previously debunked claims that were spread in the British media citing Members of Parliament, that the IHR could give the WHO powers to enforce lockdowns and shut down borders.

The new IHR amendments have also been falsely claimed to mean countries would “begin arresting and prosecuting citizens who speak out against the Bird Flu vaccine”.

The WHO is a regular target of conspiracy theories, particularly arising out of its role during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Last month, The Journal debunked claims that the World Health Organization ordered “mega lockdowns” for Mpox, and that Bill Gates and the WHO did not call for armies to arrest and forcibly vaccinate people.

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