NEWS RELEASE
For Immediate Release
May 9, 2024
CONTACT:
Matthew Franklin, [email protected]
Twenty-Two State Attorneys General Oppose Biden Surrender Of Sovereignty, States Rights To The W.H.O.
Sovereignty Coalition Applauds Their Rejection of Global Governance
WASHINGTON, D.C.— Twenty-two state attorneys general have added their voices to the growing opposition to the Biden administration’s plan to agree in just 18 days to two treaties still being negotiated by the World Health Organization (WHO). Under the leadership of Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen, these states’ senior legal officers have rejected these accords that would have the effect of turning over their states’ constitutional responsibility for public health decisions to the WHO’s Director General, Tedros Ghebreyesus. Their bottom line: “We will resist any attempt to enable the WHO to directly or indirectly set public policy for our citizens.”
In their letter to President Biden, the attorneys general also declared:
As the chief legal officers of our States, we oppose two instruments under negotiation that could give the World Health Organization (WHO) unprecedented and unconstitutional powers over the United States and her people….
To varying degrees, these measures would threaten national sovereignty, undermine states’ authority, and imperil constitutionally guaranteed freedoms. Ultimately, the goal of these instruments isn’t to protect public health. It’s to cede authority to the WHO – specifically its Director-General – to restrict our citizens’ rights to freedom of speech, privacy, movement (especially travel across borders) and informed consent.
The AGs went on to enumerate specific objections to these two treaties:
We…oppose such accords for several important reasons. First, the two proposed instruments would transform the WHO from an advisory, charitable organization into the world’s governor of public health. The WHO currently lacks authority to enforce its recommendations. Under proposed IHR amendments and the Pandemic Treaty, however, the WHO’s Director-General would achieve the power to unilaterally declare a “public health emergency of international concern” (PHEIC) in one or more member nations. Such declarations can include perceived or potential emergencies other than pandemics, including climate change, immigration, gun violence, or even “emergencies” involving plants, animals, or ecosystems. The more egregious versions of the proposals would authorize the Director-General to dictate what must be done in response to a declared PHEIC. In other words, America’s elected representatives would no longer set the nation’s public health policies. Even watered down, these proposals would inappropriately cede American sovereignty to the WHO.
Second, the federal government cannot delegate public health decisions to an international body. The U.S. Constitution doesn’t vest responsibility for public health policy with the federal government. It reserves those powers for the States. Even if the federal government had such power, Article II, Section 2 requires approval by the United States Senate.
Third, the proposed IHR amendments and the Pandemic Treaty would lay the groundwork for a global surveillance infrastructure, ostensibly in the interest of public health, but with the inherent opportunity for control (as with Communist China’s “social credit system”). The current draft instructs signatories to “cooperate, in accordance with national law, in preventing misinformation and disinformation.” This is particularly dangerous given that your administration pressured and encouraged social-media companies to suppress free speech during COVID-19.
The Sovereignty Coalition extends its special gratitude to State Shield and its founder, Joe Gebbia, who was instrumental in working with the Attorneys General to accomplish this feat. More about the work of State Shield and the organization’s efforts to combat foreign hostile influence in the US can be found at state-shield.org
Last week, nearly half the U.S. Senate – every one of its Republican members – released another joint letter to President Biden that raised similar objections. The signatories, led by Senator Ron Johnson, opposed both amendments to the WHO’s International Health Regulations, for which the required opportunity to review the text has not been given, and the so-called Pandemic Response Agreement, whose latest draft they describe as “Dead on Arrival.”
Taken together, the letters from the attorneys general and the Senate’s Republicans should be serious impediments to the Biden plan to embrace “global governance” at the expense of America’s sovereignty, states rights and constitutionally guaranteed freedoms. It remains to be seen whether the WHO negotiators will produce final drafts of both treaties by the latest deadline of May 10th. But either way, it is completely unacceptable to proceed as planned with the World Health Assembly approving in less than three week’s time either, let alone both, of these dangerously defective accords.
Before the American people are subjected in any way, shape or form to the tyranny of a world health dictator, they and their elected representatives, particularly in the U.S. Senate, must have an opportunity for informed debate and approval of such a departure from our constitutional, limited, representative and accountable government. Join us in insisting on such protections by saying “Not Now” to the adoption of the WHO treaties at the World Health Assembly in the next few days.
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CONTACTS:
To interview representatives of the Sovereignty Coalition, contact Matthew Franklin at [email protected].