One day before the deadline, the U.S. government has issued a refusal of new international health regulations that dramatically expand the World Health Organization’s international powers.
The WHO’s 2024 amendments to International Health Regulations – adopted by the organization’s highest decision-making body, the World Health Assembly – were set to become binding if not rejected by Saturday.
The revisions would have granted the WHO the power to order global lockdowns, travel restrictions, and any other measures deemed necessary to address “potential public health risks.”
The State department along with U.S. Health and Human Services issued the Friday rejection, arguing that the amendments would give the WHO “undue influence on our domestic health responses.”
“Terminology throughout the amendments to the 2024 International Health Regulations is vague and broad, risking WHO-coordinated international responses that focus on political issues like solidarity, rather than rapid and effective actions,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said.
“Our Agencies have been and will continue to be clear: we will put Americans first in all our actions and we will not tolerate international policies that infringe on Americans’ speech, privacy, or personal liberties,” he added.
The WHO’s regulations also advised countries to assert greater control over public health information and would have required countries to adopt digital health documents.
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. noted that the provisions ignore the international agency’s “susceptibility” to “political influence and censorship.”
“The proposed amendments to the International Health Regulations open the door to the kind of narrative management, propaganda, and censorship that we saw during the COVID pandemic,” Kennedy said. “The United States can cooperate with other nations without jeopardizing our civil liberties, without undermining our Constitution, and without ceding away America’s treasured sovereignty.”
Multiple Republican lawmakers expressed support for the move. President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from the WHO via executive order in January, but the new regulations would have applied to the nation regardless, unless rejected.
