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In mid-January 2023, conspiracy theorists ran with a baffling suggestion: A publicly scheduled meeting of a World Health Organization (WHO) committee — the terms of which had already been agreed upon in an earlier and equally public meeting — represented a covert power grab by the organization. The meeting in question, which took place between Jan. 9 and 13, 2023, concerned amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR) — a set of already legally binding international laws governing how states respond to public health emergencies. The IHR has been revised and amended several times in the past, most recently in January 2016. The January 2023 meeting was of the International Health Regulations Review Committee (IHRRC). The IHR, according to WHO, provides an overarching legal framework that defines countries' rights and obligations in handling public health events and emergencies that have the potential to cross borders: As this meeting was underway, conspiracy-theory oriented media outlets and social media personalities began casting the affair as a secret meeting that — among other nefarious intentions — allowed WHO to expand its authority with limited oversight through amendments to the IHR. Discussion of this meeting, which is sometimes accompanied by the hashtag #stoptheamendments, often contains the same copypasta text alleging the meeting is a secret: In addition to that statement, that copypasta text also included a list of 10 proposed amendments described in a way that is — to put it mildly — aggressively misleading. Among these claims were: Here, Snopes demonstrates that this meeting was not secret, and that conspiratorial discussion of these amendments represented, at best, a superficial reading of the proposals designed to instill fear. The IHRRC meeting in January 2023 had never been secret. It followed, among other events, a May 2022 meeting of all WHO member states that, through compromise, set out a framework and timeline for amending the IHR in light of the most recent pandemic. This meeting and the proposed followup meeting were publicly reported on at the time. As Politico wrote in May 2022: The IHRRC meeting represented the final meeting of that working group. As the WHO issued news releases about this meeting at its launch, it was never secret. WHO General Secretary Tedros Ghebreyesus issued this public statement at the start of the meeting: These aforementioned amendments were also not secret. Conspiracy theorists have built their entire case about these proposed amendments by looking at a document that literally lays out — line by line — each of the proposed changes being discussed. The IHR was already legally binding. The totality of the argument that the amendments change the overall nature of the World Health Organization from an advisory organization that merely makes recommendations to a governing body whose proclamations would be legally-binding rests on the observation that the word non-binding was removed from two definitions in the proposed amendments: Regardless of the removal of the word non-binding, the WHO was still offering advice here. Further, this change does not represent a legal shift in WHO power or authority, as the IHR as a whole has always been legally binding. The discussion of the rest of the amendments shared in the copypasta text was similarly superficial, recasting linguistic choices as an attempt to increase legal authority. For example, people sowing fear about the amendments meeting frequently referenced the fact that the amendments removed the words respect for dignity, human rights and fundamental freedoms of people. While this is true, such discussion omits the words this clause was replaced with: This was not a rejection of human rights, as conspiracy theorists suggested, but a restatement of human rights — as WHO secretary general indicated — based on cross-cutting themes, including equity, transparency, trust, sovereignty, collaboration, and assistance, with the overarching goal of protecting public health. More broadly, these amendments did not change the nature of WHO or provide it with enhanced legal authority, as the IHR rules have always been legally binding. As proposed, they do potentially enhance the ability of member states to produce and stockpile vaccine ingredients and authorize — with deference to local laws — entry requirements based on things like a negative COVID-19 test. Changes like these are frequently made to the IHR, and their occurrence is far from secret. Every step of this process has been public, reported on, and documented. Because the meeting was not secret and because it did not change the legally binding nature of the IHR, claims that a secret meeting was held by the IHRRC to usurp power for the WHO should be rated False.
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