Montana Attorney General Spearheads Coalition Opposing WHO Accords

The flag of the World Health Organization (WHO) at their headquarters in Geneva on March 5, 2021. (Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images)

Montana Republican Attorney General Austin Knudsen has spearheaded a coalition of state prosecutors declaring opposition to U.S. compliance with the United Nation’s WHO pandemic treaty accords.

In a letter to the Biden administration, Mr. Knudsen said the accords “could radically transform the WHO’s existing International Health Regulations (IHRs) and institute a new ‘Pandemic Agreement’ (Treaty).”

The WHO—at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in December 2021—said it has begun writing an international pandemic agreement “to strengthen pandemic prevention, preparedness and response.”

According to WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Wuhan’s COVID-19 exposed “many flaws in the global system to protect people from pandemics.”

An international treaty would facilitate “solidarity and equity,” the WHO said.

At its 2021 World Health Assembly (WHA), the WHO’s decision-making board—its 194 member states—agreed to establish an intergovernmental negotiating body that would represent “all regions of the world” and to draft a pandemic treaty that would complement its 2005 IHRs written to “provide an overarching legal framework that defines countries’ rights and obligations in handling public health events and emergencies that have the potential to cross borders.”

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Member states are set to vote on the final draft of the treaty at the 77th WHA at the end of May, the WHO said.

‘Ceding Authority’

Since the process began, there has been debate over how much authority the WHO would have within the parameters drawn out in its pandemic treaty.

Attorney General Knudsen told The Epoch Times that if President Joe Biden agreed to the accords as presented by the WHO, it would risk “ceding away significant portions of federal authority that are unconstitutional.”

“This is not how we do business in America,” Mr. Knudsen said. “We don’t give organizations like this power over our internal operations.”

While it’s questionable whether President Biden has the authority to enter into this agreement, one thing is certain: “There’s not the constitutional authority to delegate this kind of power to an international body,” he said.

One of the most alarming parts of the most recent amendments to the treaty (pdf) is that it gives the WHO director-general the power to “declare a public health emergency of international concern,” he said.

“What does that mean? That could be anything from an alleged pandemic, a public health emergency of international concern for climate change, or gun violence. This is very nebulous, open-ended, and abstract. And it gives way too much power to unelected bureaucrats.”

In the letter, he stated that instead of holding the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) accountable for covering up human-to-human transmission of COVID-19, impacting measures to prevent a global pandemic, and for failing to get the CCP to cooperate with independent investigations into alleged virus engineering at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the WHO has set out to “relinquish more power” by attempting to engage in surveillance and control over information.

“The proposed measures, however, would only exacerbate the WHO’s underlying problems and enable more civil liberties violations during future ‘emergencies,’” he said. “Accordingly, we will resist any attempt to enable the WHO to directly or indirectly set public policy for our citizens.”

WHO’s Defends Treaty

In response to The Epoch Times request for comment, a spokesperson for the WHO referenced a Q&A explainer in which WHO attorney Steven Solomon said that the treaty aims to help countries respond better to pandemics while keeping those countries “in the driver’s seat,” reflecting a statement the WHO later made saying that member states decide the terms of the accord, “including whether any of its provisions will be legally binding on Member States as a matter of international law.”

In response to claims that the treaty would grant the WHO authority to mandate vaccines and engage in surveillance, Mr. Solomon said the treaty only makes “public health surveillance faster, better, more reliable.”

“Also, the treaty isn’t going to give the WHO power to dictate vaccine mandates,” he said. “The treaty won’t give WHO the power to dictate anything.”

WHO provides a voice independent of any country or interest group, he said in defense of the treaty.

“And so, recommendations from us, which are based on science and evidence, are for countries a tool if they want to use it to help their response,” he said.

In response to claims that the treaty could be used as a means for government overreach and corruption, Mr. Solomon said that long before the COVID pandemic, the WHO and its participating countries established the Framework of Engagement with Non-State Actors (FENSA), which he called “a fence against conflict of interest.”

“So we have ways of engaging with all these external actors, which have an interest in what we’re doing to reduce, hopefully eliminate, conflicts of interest,” Mr. Solomon said.

Calls to Defund the WHO

Still, there are those like the Republican attorneys general and other policy analysts observing the development of the global treaty who aren’t convinced and continue to sound the alarm on what they believe to be a deceptive power grab.

In 2020, former President Donald Trump submitted a notice of withdrawal from the WHO, citing its poor handling of the COVID pandemic.

After President Joe Biden took office, he resumed U.S. membership with the organization to the celebration of many in the scientific and policy community like the former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci and Dr. Ghebreyesus.

Since then, there have been several calls to exit and defund the WHO from conservative lawmakers such as Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) who led a 2023 event warning that the treaty could lead to increasing pressure for mandatory public policies.

Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) held a press conference in May 2023 calling for the defunding of the WHO.

“It’s a huge concern,” Mr. Norman said.

As the scheduled meeting for the WHA approaches, Rep. Norman held another press conference in April in which he urged for transparency and more time to consider amendments to the treaty and for language that advocates for censorship to be removed from the treaty.

“Basically, we’ve got to object to anything that’s agreed to by the Biden administration,” he said.

According to the Washington Examiner, House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) called for Congress to defund the WHO earlier this month.

“The World Health Organization covered up the Chinese Communist Party’s role in developing and spreading COVID-19 and has since failed to hold them accountable for the global pandemic that killed millions, upended our daily lives, and destroyed thousands of small businesses,” Rep. Emmer said.

‘Procedurally Illegal’

Valerie Borek, associate director and policy analyst for the medical freedom organization Stand for Health Freedom, told The Epoch Times that many lawmakers think they can solve concerns about the WHO by simply defunding the organization.

“However, 80 percent of WHO funding comes from private sources, and domestically that approach has not been reliable,” Ms. Borek said. “WHO financing cuts that were on the table for the FY2024 US Budget got dropped. Defunding is not a viable option.”

She pointed to a 2023 bill, proposed by Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), called the WHO Withdrawal Act that would require President Joe Biden to do as the title says and prohibit federal funds from going to the WHO.

However, Ms. Borek said, there are arguments that the 2022 amendments presented by the United States weren’t legally adopted, leaving some to question their validity, she said.

“There is no evidence of a vote by the WHA; instead the amendments were agreed to by a consensus in a plenary session that included only a fraction of member countries,” she said.

The 2022 IHR amendments changed the timeline for future amendments, she said.

“The Biden administration proposed countries have only six months to process changes and see them go into effect,” she said. “The process started as a two-year process. What passed was a one-year window. This is reckless in international law, in my opinion.”

She said the United States is weeks away from the WHA’s vote on the pandemic treaty and amendments to the IHR.

She added that the 2024 vote is “procedurally illegal.”

“Article 55 of the IHRs requires four months advance submission of any documents for consideration at the WHA,” she said. “That would mean we should have had a final treaty draft, and final compiled amendment proposals by Jan. 27, 2024. That deadline passed, of course. We do not have the final documents. Therefore, by the IHR, there should not be a vote.”

Undermining States’ Rights

Ms. Borek said there are over 300 amendments to the IHR being proposed, which could change over 50 percent of the document.

“A recent release of compiled amendments backed down dramatically on detailed language because countries still cannot come to an agreement even with extra time,” she said. “We are still waiting to see what will be presented at the WHA, and we know the intent to give more authority to the WHO is still there.”

The potential changes would classify the agreement as a treaty, which requires the consent of the Senate, she said.

“It would change our relationship with other countries, change our financial obligations, increase WHO authority over domestic policy, undermine states’ rights, and call for us to change domestic law,” she said. “The IHR was not treated as a treaty when it was adopted in 1969, nor when it has been amended since.”

The Epoch Times has contacted the Biden administration for comment.