KUALA LUMPUR, June 4 — Malaysia plans to evaluate all amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR) approved by the World Health Assembly (WHA), before deciding on whether to accept or reject any of the legally binding amendments.
At the 77th WHA in Geneva, Switzerland, the annual meeting of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) 194 member countries made an historic decision last June 1 to agree on a package of critical amendments to the 2005 IHR.
The WHA also made concrete commitments to completing negotiations on a global pandemic agreement within a year, at the latest – a process launched in December 2021 to prevent a repeat of the global health, economic, and social impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“All State Parties, including Malaysia, fully understand that adoption of the resolution at WHA77 does not equate to State Parties fully accepting these IHR amendments,” Health Minister Dzulkefly Ahmad said in a statement to CodeBlue yesterday.
“Based on Article 59 of the IHR, Member States will have a period of 10 months to reserve or reject any of these amendments. Malaysia intends to carefully scrutinise the IHR amendments, article by article, in consultation with the related ministries and agencies, following which, the necessary domestic administrative and legislative requirements and processes will be undertaken.”
Dzulkefly added that Malaysia has been participating constructively in the negotiations of the IHR amendments and making statements to articulate Malaysia’s position from the beginning of negotiations in 2022 up until the 77th WHA.
“For Malaysia, the MOH (Ministry of Health) will be both the IHR Focal Point and also the National IHR Authority, following Cabinet approval,” Dzulkefly told CodeBlue.
“The MJM (Cabinet memorandum), with this package of amendments, is being finalised and BDHA (Policy and International Relations Division) colleagues have informed that the plan is for it to be tabled at the Cabinet on 5th June (tomorrow).”
The National IHR Authority – under Article 4 of the IHR amendments – is an entity established by the State Party, or country, at the national level to coordinate the implementation of the Regulations within the State Party’s jurisdiction.
At a WHO media briefing last June 1 after the closing of the WHA, WHO principal legal officer Steve Solomon explained that the consensus agreement at the WHA to adopt the IHR amendments did not mean that the international law applies “legally right away”.
“What it means is it starts a process – a process at the domestic level where every country goes back and considers for itself, in each country, whether these amendments make sense for that country,” Solomon said.
“Adoption begins the process. and that process respects the sovereign right of each country to decide for itself to accept or to opt out of these international rules.”
The WHO director-general will soon notify all countries about the WHA’s approval of the IHR amendments that will come into force – 12 months after this notification – for countries that decide to accept the international law.
“The historic decisions taken today demonstrate a common desire by Member States to protect their own people, and the world’s, from the shared risk of public health emergencies and future pandemics,” WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement last June 1, following the WHA’s adoption of the IHR amendments and commitment to the pandemic treaty.
“The amendments to the International Health Regulations will bolster countries’ ability to detect and respond to future outbreaks and pandemics by strengthening their own national capacities, and coordination between fellow States, on disease surveillance, information sharing and response.
“This is built on commitment to equity, an understanding that health threats do not recognize national borders, and that preparedness is a collective endeavour.”
WHO emergencies programme executive director Dr Mike Ryan said only one country disassociated from the IHR amendments, whereas two other nations stated that their governments would conduct reviews within their local legislative frameworks.
“It’s a remarkable achievement. Beyond the consensus, only a single Member State disassociated from the IHR in a world that’s geopolitically split and divided,” Dr Ryan told the virtual press conference last June 1 in Geneva.
Health Policy Watch, a Geneva-based global health policy news site, reported that Slovakia disassociated itself from the IHR amendments, whereas Russia and Argentina said they reserved the right to implement the IHR amendments – or not – according to their national sovereignty.
Before the June 1 passage of the IHR amendments by the WHA, Dzulkefly issued a press statement last May 24 to say that Malaysia would only sign the IHR amendments and the pandemic agreement if these international treaties followed three core principles: national sovereignty and the authority of the Yang di-Pertuan Agong and the Rulers are not compromised; fair and equal distribution of pandemic-related health products between developed and developing countries; and no additional funding demands for the establishment of health emergency financial mechanisms.
The WHO’s June 1 news release highlighted the establishment of a Coordinating Financial Mechanism in a “commitment to solidarity and equity on strengthening access to medical products and financing”, including addressing the needs and priorities of developing countries.
According to Clause 1(c) of Article 44bis on Coordinating Financial Mechanism in the IHR amendments, the mechanism is established to “work to mobilise new and additional financial resources”, relevant to the effective implementation of these Regulations.
This clause appears to contradict one of the core principles initially proposed by Putrajaya in Dzulkefly’s May 24 statement, which was to avoid “demanding any additional funds” for the establishment of health emergency financial mechanisms.
The United Kingdom government said in a statement last June 2 that every country, including the UK, now has the right under the IHR to “evaluate each and every amendment before making a sovereign choice of whether to accept or opt out of each of – or all of – the amendments.”
“In the UK, we have a general election on 4th July and we are therefore in a formal pre-election period. It will be for the elected government to make that choice,” said the UK government’s statement, issued by the UK mission to the WTO, UN and other international organisations (Geneva).
According to the WHO news release, one of the key amendments to the IHR is the introduction of the definition of a “pandemic emergency” to trigger more effective international collaboration in response to events that are at risk of becoming, or have become, a pandemic.
“According to the definition, a pandemic emergency is a communicable disease that
- has, or is at high risk of having, wide geographical spread to and within multiple States; and
- exceeds or is at high risk of exceeding the capacity of health systems to respond in those States; and
- causes, or is at high risk of causing, substantial social and/or economic disruption, including disruption to international traffic and trade; and
- requires rapid, equitable and enhanced coordinated international action, with whole-of-government and whole-of-society approaches.”
