False claim resurfaces about WHO pandemic treaty and US sovereignty

A recirculated claim falsely says a pending international health treaty would mean the end of U.S. sovereignty during a pandemic.

"The WHO is pushing for the United States to approve their ‘Pandemic Accord’ by this May," a woman says in an April 2 Facebook video. "This accord would take away American sovereignty and give the WHO power to put in legally binding policies in America in the case of another pandemic." 

The woman claims the WHO would be able to institute lockdowns and implement mask mandates, and the Facebook post directs people to sign a petition to "Defund the WHO." Population Research Institute, a nonprofit organization that opposes abortion, shared the video.

The Facebook video was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

The video mischaracterizes the accord’s powers. The WHO Pandemic Agreement is still under discussion by the WHO’s 194 member states, including the United States. The draft text does not authorize the WHO to dictate pandemic responses to the U.S. or any country.

World leaders first proposed the idea for a new treaty in response to sparse international cooperation during the COVID-19 pandemic. If adopted by member countries, the agreement would outline how member countries would inform the WHO and one another about infectious disease outbreaks and structure a global plan for vaccine sharing.

Jesse Bump, executive director of the Takemi Program in International Health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, told PolitiFact in 2023, "The draft is best understood as an attempt to encourage better performance during pandemics by countries and WHO, as motivated by the commonly shared opinion that neither WHO nor most countries did well in the COVID-19 pandemic." 

Member countries have met nine times since February 2022 about the accord and have agreed to a two-week meeting later this month to finalize the treaty in time for the 77th World Health Assembly in late May.

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PolitiFact has previously checked similar claims that misinterpreted U.S. proposed amendments to the treaty and claimed the accord will give the WHO control over U.S. pandemic policy. Contrary to the claims, the accord’s latest draft highlights the importance of nations’ sovereignty. 

As it outlines the treaty’s principles, the text says parties to the agreement will be guided by "the sovereign right of States to adopt, legislate and implement legislation, within their jurisdiction."

In another instance, the text says, "Nothing in the WHO Pandemic Agreement shall be interpreted as providing the WHO Secretariat, including the WHO Director-General, any authority to direct, order, alter or otherwise prescribe the domestic laws or policies of any Party, or to mandate or otherwise impose any requirements that Parties take specific actions, such as ban or accept travellers, impose vaccination mandates or therapeutic or diagnostic measures, or implement lockdowns."

Lawrence Gostin, director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University, who helped draft the WHO accord, told PolitiFact in 2023 that the accord would not give the WHO any powers to dictate policy in the U.S., and that "this narrative is so far from the truth that it is dangerous and malicious."

We rate the claim that the WHO pandemic accord "would take away American sovereignty and give the WHO power to put in legally binding policies in America in the case of another pandemic" False.