Trump undermines WHO, UN system

Jomo Kwame Sundaram and Anis Chowdhury

KUALA LUMPUR, SYDNEY: After accusing the World Health Organization (WHO) of pro-China bias, President Donald Trump announced US withdrawal from the UN agency. Although the US created the UN system for the post-Second World War new international order, Washington has often had to struggle in recent decades to ensure that it continues to serve changing US interests.

Invisible virus trumps POTUS

In early July, Washington gave the required one-year notice officially advising the UN of its intention to withdraw from the WHO, created by the US as the global counterpart to the now century-old Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO).

However, the White House decision violates US law as it does not have express approval of the US Congress required by the 1948 joint resolution of both US legislative houses enabling US membership of the WHO.

Trump had already refused to meet US financial commitments. This too violates the 1948 resolution requiring the US to fully meet its financial obligations for the current fiscal year before leaving, probably presuming that earlier dues have been fully paid up.

The WHO needs more funding than ever to address the COVID-19 pandemic by increasing cooperation, coordination and awareness, establishing standards and protocols, and securing medical supplies for all, especially needy countries.

The world would have been much worse off without the WHO, e.g., as it tries to ensure that COVID-19 vaccines are affordably accessible to all. By contrast, Trump’s jingoistic policies and actions have even involved piracy.

After concluding a favourable trade deal early in the new year, Trump praised China on 24 January: “China has been working very hard to contain the Coronavirus. The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency”.

As POTUS’s failure to better handle the COVID-19 pandemic has become apparent to most, he has created scapegoats to gloss over his gross mismanagement, demonizing China to also serve larger political purposes. Growing Western paranoia about China’s rise has contributed to collective amnesia.

POTUS has accused the WHO of deference to China and deliberate failure to provide accurate information about COVID-19. Despite disproven and unproven allegations, Trump’s allegations of WHO bias for China have dominated international public opinion.

WHO’s mixed record

WHO policy decisions are made by the World Health Assembly (WHA) with almost 200 Member States. As in other UN bodies, decisions adopted with developing countries in the majority have often not been to Washington’s liking. 

Without the bullying US presence, WHO’s functioning may improve, but the WHO will be weakened by reduced resources and possibly, sabotage. It will increasingly depend on other sources of funding, many private, US-based, which is likely to compromise its policies and practices.

Already, the WHO Secretariat has been widely criticised for favouring US interests, e.g., by procuring from US companies. US and other transnational companies greatly influence WHO policy and management decisions in their own favour.

Halfdan Mahler, a three-term WHO Director-General, warned that the pharmaceutical industry’s “unhealthy influence” was “taking over WHO”. Thus, any balanced inquiry of WHO bias should include the influence of big pharmaceutical corporations, especially as the agency increasingly depends on private funding.

Despite an official inquiry finding “no wrong doing” after a Council of Europe committee alleged possible conflicts of interest in WHO’s declaration of an A/H1N1 swine flu pandemic, criticisms of conflicts of interest remain.

The British Medical Journal found that key WHO influenza pandemic planning scientific advisers had been paid by pharmaceutical firms that stood to gain from the guidance they were preparing, i.e., possibly involving conflicts of interest never publicly declared.

Financial blackmail

UN organizations depend on mandatory annual contributions by Member States, determined according to agreed scales of assessment relative to their wealth and population. When a Member State fails to pay dues for the preceding two years, it loses voting rights.

The US should pay 22% of WHO’s annual budget, and the European Union 30%. Of the total of US$489 million for 2020, the assessed contribution for the US came to US$115 million.

However, the US has regularly defaulted, partially or wholly, on contributions due to the WHO and the UN secretariat among others. For instance, the US only paid a third of its assessed WHO contribution for 2019.

Thus, while low-income countries duly pay their statutory contributions, the world’s largest economy selectively withholds payments due in order to influence UN agencies’ policies, decisions and practices. 

Nonetheless, a larger share of WHO expenditure than the assessed US budgetary contribution ends up in the US to procure medicines, equipment and services.

US threatens UN multilateralism

Washington’s refusal to pay its WHO and other UN dues reflects its attitude to the democratization of the multilateral organizations it once created. US efforts to financially squeeze UN agencies are nothing new, having long refused to pay dues to the UN secretariat on various dubious grounds.

With its veto, the US has been able to ensure that the UN’s most strategic organ, the Security Council, could never undermine its interests despite the nominal ‘one-country-one-vote’ governance of much of the UN system. 

Undoubtedly, like much of the rest of UN system, the WHO needs reform, e.g., to improve accountability in decision-making, but progress has been blocked by various divides, with support for Trump’s accusations and vague reform demands driven primarily by political considerations.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has also come under US arm-twisting, with the US and Israel pulling out in December 2018 following its overwhelming General Conference decision to admit Palestine as a member.

When Ronald Reagan was president, the US had quit UNESCO in 1984 after claiming that then Senegalese Director-General Amadou-Mahtar M’Bow had been “politicizing” the organization. The US only rejoined in 2003 during the first George W. Bush presidential term, i.e., before the Iraq War.

Meanwhile, the US remains outside many other global multilateral initiatives, including the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Kyoto Protocol, the International Criminal Court and the Basel Convention, and has also withdrawn from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Paris Agreement and the UN Human Rights Council.

Even if he concedes the presidency in January, Trump’s jingoistic legacy has already irreversibly poisoned US public sentiment and international politics. Multilateralism and the UN system may well suffer irreversible collateral damage until an unlikely new ‘coalition of the willing’ rises to the challenge.

Covid-19 Cannot Be Defeated by a Divided World

Jomo Kwame Sundaram, Anis Chowdhury SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Jul 16 (IPS)  - Announcing an independent evaluation of the global Covid-19 response on 9th July, World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus asked why it has been "difficult for humans to unite and fight a common enemy that is killing people indiscriminately?". He warned: "The greatest threat we face now is not the virus itself. Rather, it is the lack of leadership and solidarity at the global and national levels… we cannot defeat this pandemic as a divided world", highlighting inter-governmental conflicts over the pandemic and its containment. 

Solidarity desperately needed With more than 600,000 acknowledged deaths, almost 13 million are believed to have been infected by Covid-19 in mid-July. In less than half a year, every country had been affected by the pandemic, designated by the WHO as a "public health emergency of international concern" (PHEIC) on 30th January. Richard Horton, editor of the prestigious Lancet medical journal, has urged the United Nations to convene an emergency special session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) to make "appropriate recommendations to Members for collective measures".  A "meeting under the auspices of the UN is the only means available to construct a global response to this pandemic". Wondering "why such a global gathering has not yet taken place", he pleaded, "It must take place. And soon".  Covid-19 has been devastating, not only because of its heavy toll on human life, but also because of its adverse impacts on livelihoods, especially for much of the ‘precariat', particularly in the most vulnerable developing countries.  The pandemic's indirect impacts are not well understood as national health systems, already undermined by years of under-investment and creeping privatization, struggle to cope.  Other preventable deaths are rising as less people get medical attention due to loss of livelihoods and health coverage. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has estimated an additional 1·44 million deaths from the three killer diseases.  Horton warns, "Global health has entered a period of rapid reversal...Yet no plan is in place, or even being proposed, to address this global regression in human health". For him, "this pandemic deserves historically unrivalled global political leadership. And yet all we have is silence". He asks, "How have we fallen so low?".  WHO "left out to dry" Helen Clark, former New Zealand Prime Minister and co-chair of the independent review, lamented that the WHO has been undermined by lack of support from the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and the G20, observing, "toxic geopolitics have stopped it doing anything useful at all". On 7th July, the United States gave the required one year's notice to the UN that it would withdraw from the WHO. With the world's largest economy, US withdrawal will greatly weaken WHO finances when it is needed more than ever. The US has not provided meaningful world leadership in recent years, but has instead increasingly undermined the multilateral order it was the primary architect of. Yet, the current campaign against the WHO is unprecedented, and is widely believed to be connected to political, economic and diplomatic mobilization to check China's rise.  In the current context, US withdrawal is expected to greatly undermine multilateral cooperation more broadly. sides endangering the lives and health of billions worldwide, it will undermine multilateralism more generally, not only in the UN system, but even at the World Trade Organization (WTO). WHO could have done better Undoubtedly, the WHO's role in the pandemic could have been better, although how so depends on one's perspective. Despite resource constraints and member-imposed regulations and protocols, it has done well, designating the outbreak a ‘public health emergency of international concern' (PHEIC) on 30th January.  Then, there were only 7,818 confirmed cases of human-to-human transmission, mostly in China, and 82 cases in 18 countries outside China. The WHO advised all countries to "be ready to contain any introduction of the virus and its spread through active surveillance, early detection, isolation and case management, contact tracing, and prevention".  Yet, mistakes were undoubtedly made, e.g., discouraging the use of face masks, ostensibly to ensure adequate protective personal equipment for medical personnel and other ‘frontline workers'.  But there is no conclusive evidence, except for uncorroborated claims by the anti-China Japanese and Taiwanese authorities, greatly amplified by the media in India, Australia and the US, of the WHO being controlled by and biased towards China. Refusing to prepare The first WHO fact-finding mission to China emphasized the success of prompt, early precautionary measures, including testing, tracing, isolation and treatment. Contagion could still have been contained by adopting WHO recommended measures. Yet, except for a handful of East Asian countries and Kerala state, in southwest India, much of the rest of the world, including most who could afford more adequate precautionary measures, did little to contain the contagion until they had little choice but to impose ‘stay in shelter' lockdown measures.  When the WHO declared Covid-19 a "pandemic" on 11th March, there were over 118,000 confirmed cases and 4,291 deaths in 114 countries, with more than 90% of cases in four countries: China, Iran, Italy and South Korea.  By then, new infections were already declining rapidly in China and South Korea, while 81 countries reported no cases, and 57 had ten cases or less. Yet, inaction persisted, even justified in terms of developing ‘herd immunity'. To be sure, many rich countries had been weakening the WHO for decades before the Covid-19 pandemic. Reliable long-term mandatory funding had fallen from 62% of its budget in 1970-71 to 18% in 2017.  As Stewart Patrick noted, "much of the blame can be laid at the feet of member states, which have saddled the WHO with an ever-expanding mission set reflecting their individual priorities, while providing it with a modest operating budget… smaller than that of some big city U.S. hospitals.  "Compounding these difficulties, national governments have repeatedly proved resistant to accepting WHO guidance or fulfilling their international legal obligations during declared public health emergencies".  Security Council must act  In 2014, the UNSC responded promptly to the Ebola crisis, declaring the virus a threat to peace and security, thus ‘legally obliging' Member States to do whatever they can to check the threat.  Despite its much greater morbidity and mortality impacts worldwide, the UNSC took half a year to back the UN Secretary-General's global ceasefire appeal following the Covid-19 outbreak.  Covid-19 is arguably the greatest threat to peace and security since the Second World War. Now that the UNSC is finally acting, only seven of the 15-member Council can convene UN Member States for an emergency UNGA special session to do the right thing.

Also available online here: http://www.ipsnews.net/2020/07/covid-19-cannot-defeated-divided-world/