The International Health Reform Project Report And The Right To Health Sovereignty

The International Health Reform Project (IHRP) has recently issued their ‘The Right To Health Sovereignty’ policy report which highlights the failings of global health policy under the influence of failed organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO), and discusses what countries and global communities should be doing instead to actually improve public health.

This policy report was crafted by a multidisciplinary and multinational panel with experience in international health, law, and the function of international organizations across several regions and took more than a year to complete.

The panel examined (and is continuing to examine) the fundamental principles of human rights, sovereignty, and public health ethics upon which a global health organization should be run and how the WHO currently fails to adhere to these.

The WHO has drifted far from its roots as an organization solely controlled by member states and based on accepted post-World War Two principles and ethics. A clear review of this drift will help determine whether the necessary reform is feasible within the WHO, or if a new and more appropriate structure needs to be developed (which is likely the best option, given the recent failings of the WHO around the Hantavirus and Ebola fiasco’s).

This published review addresses funding and conflicts of interest, the requirement for state-based control and accountability, and the need for capacity building at the national level to reduce donor dependency and build self-sufficiency. A strong platform for urgent but positive reform is needed to ensure that the current opportunity presented by an international order under stress, the US withdrawal from the WHO, and wider disquiet is not wasted.

The authors propose a path forward: either to deeply (and genuinely) reform the WHO or to drive the creation of a new, decentralized International Health Organization (IHO) that prioritizes:

1. Transparent, accountable collaboration without coercion.
2. Focuses on root causes of health (sanitation, nutrition, education, economic well-being).
3. Establishes true informed consent, non-maleficence (“first, do no harm”), and individual autonomy, and
4. Focuses on sustainable capacity-building that reduces dependency.

The Right to Health Sovereignty concludes that the restoration of trust in international health governance depends on rediscovering the moral foundations of medicine and public health, and the sovereign responsibilities of the nation state. The WHO’s model – centralized, donor-captured, and ideologically driven – may not be able to meet that challenge.

The future of global health lies in an ethical, sovereign, decentralized architecture designed to serve people through their states, not to govern them.

An International Health Organization built on sovereignty, subsidiarity, and ethics would integrate universal moral principles (beneficence, non-maleficence, confidentiality, informed consent) and consequently a set of public health principles derived from these including an architecture of accountability and decentralization. It would preserve the benefits of cooperation while upholding the freedoms of individuals and nations.

The development and publication of this report is a very encouraging sign that people are finally seeing through the facade of these massive international – and unelected – NGO’s and the huge power they control, much of which just fuels their own corruption and influence.
It is certainly time for them to be replaced, however as with all powerful and corrupt institutions they will not go quietly…

The full policy report and associated technical reports can be found at https://brownstone.org/articles/the-right-to-health-sovereignty/. The policy report is also available from Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/dp/163069309X/ref=sr_1_1.

The main sources for this article is: https://brownstone.org/author/international-health-reform-project/