[Congressional Bills 117th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 4343 Introduced in Senate (IS)]
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117th CONGRESS
2d Session
S. 4343
To require any convention, agreement, or other international instrument
on pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response reached by the World
Health Assembly to be subject to Senate ratification.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
May 26, 2022
Mr. Johnson (for himself, Mr. Barrasso, Mr. Braun, Mr. Cotton, Mr.
Cruz, Mr. Grassley, Mr. Hagerty, Mr. Hoeven, Mrs. Hyde-Smith, Mr. Lee,
Mr. Marshall, Mr. Rubio, Mr. Scott of Florida, Mr. Tuberville, Mr.
Daines, and Mr. Tillis) introduced the following bill; which was read
twice and referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations
_______________________________________________________________________
A BILL
To require any convention, agreement, or other international instrument
on pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response reached by the World
Health Assembly to be subject to Senate ratification.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``No WHO Pandemic Preparedness Treaty
Without Senate Approval Act''.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
Congress makes the following findings:
(1) On May 18, 2020, President Donald Trump sent a letter
to World Health Organization (referred to in this Act as
``WHO'') Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (referred
to in this Act as the ``Director-General''), announcing that--
(A) United States contributions to WHO would be
halted due its mismanagement of the COVID-19 outbreak
and its lack of independence from the People's Republic
of China; and
(B) the United States would withdraw from WHO if it
did not commit to substantive improvements within 30
days.
(2) President Trump's May 18 letter cited numerous
instances of WHO mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic,
including--
(A) unjustified delays informing member states
about a potentially serious disease outbreak in Wuhan,
China; and
(B) repeated grossly inaccurate or misleading
claims about the transmissibility of the virus and
about the Government of China's handling of the
outbreak.
(3) On June 30, 2020, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
formally notified the United Nations of the United States
decision to withdraw from WHO, which would have taken effect on
July 6, 2021, under the terms of a joint resolution adopted by
Congress on June 14, 1948 (Public Law 80-643; 62 Stat. 441).
(4) A Pew Research Center survey conducted in April and May
2020 indicated that 51 percent of Americans felt that WHO had
done a poor or fair job in managing the COVID-19 pandemic.
(5) On January 20, 2021, President Joseph Biden sent United
Nations Director-General Antonio Guterres a letter retracting
the United States notice of withdrawal from WHO.
(6) On December 1, 2021, at the second special session of
the World Health Assembly (referred to in this Act as the
``WHA'') decided--
(A) ``to establish . . . an intergovernmental
negotiating body . . . (the `INB') to draft and
negotiate a WHO convention, agreement or other
international instrument on pandemic prevention,
preparedness and response, with a view to adoption
under Article 19, or under other provisions of the WHO
Constitution . . . .''; and
(B) that the INB shall submit a progress report to
the Seventy-sixth WHA and a working draft of the
convention for consideration by the Seventy-seventh
WHA, which is scheduled to take place beginning on
March 18, 2024.
(7) On February 24 and March 14 and 15, 2022, the INB held
its inaugural meeting at which the Director-General proposed
the following 5 themes to guide the INB's work in drafting the
Convention:
(A) Building national, regional, and global
capacities based on a whole-of-government and whole-of-
society approach.
(B) Establishing global access and benefit sharing
for all pathogens, and determining a global policy for
the equitable production and distribution of
countermeasures.
(C) Establishing robust systems and tools for
pandemic preparedness and response.
(D) Establishing a long-term plan for sustainable
financing to ensure support for global health threat
management and response systems.
(E) Empowering WHO to fulfill its mandate as the
directing and coordinating authority on international
health work, including for pandemic preparedness and
response.
(8) Section 723.3 of title 11 of the Department of State's
Foreign Affairs Manual states that when ``determining whether
any international agreement should be brought into force as a
treaty or as an international agreement other than a treaty,
the utmost care is to be exercised to avoid any invasion or
compromise of the constitutional powers of the President, the
Senate, and the Congress as a whole'' and includes the
following criteria to be considered when determining whether an
international agreement should take the form of a treaty or an
executive agreement:
(A) ``The extent to which the agreement involves
commitments or risks affecting the nation as a whole''.
(B) ``Whether the agreement is intended to affect
state laws''.
(C) ``Whether the agreement can be given effect
without the enactment of subsequent legislation by the
Congress''.
(D) ``Past U.S. practice as to similar
agreements''.
(E) ``The preference of the Congress as to a
particular type of agreement''.
(F) ``The degree of formality desired for an
agreement''.
(G) ``The proposed duration of the agreement, the
need for prompt conclusion of an agreement, and the
desirability of concluding a routine or short-term
agreement''.
(H) ``The general international practice as to
similar agreements''.
SEC. 3. SENSE OF THE SENATE.
It is the sense of the Senate that--
(1) a significant segment of the American public is deeply
skeptical of the World Health Organization, its leadership, and
its independence from the pernicious political influence of
certain member states, including the People's Republic of
China;
(2) the Senate strongly prefers that any agreement related
to pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response adopted by
the World Health Assembly pursuant to the work of the INB be
considered a treaty requiring the advice and consent of the
Senate, with two-thirds of Senators concurring;
(3) the scope of the agreement which the INB has been
tasked with drafting, as outlined by the Director-General, is
so broad that any application of the factors referred to in
section 2(8) will weigh strongly in favor of it being
considered a treaty; and
(4) given the level of public distrust, any relevant new
agreement by the World Health Assembly which cannot garner the
two-thirds vote needed for Senate ratification should not be
agreed to or implemented by the United States.
SEC. 4. ANY WORLD HEALTH AGENCY CONVENTION OR AGREEMENT OR OTHER
INTERNATIONAL INSTRUMENT RESULTING FROM THE INTERNATIONAL
NEGOTIATING BODY'S FINAL REPORT DEEMED TO BE A TREATY
SUBJECT TO ADVICE AND CONSENT OF THE SENATE.
Notwithstanding any other provision of law, any convention,
agreement, or other international instrument on pandemic prevention,
preparedness, and response reached by the World Health Assembly
pursuant to the recommendations, report, or work of the International
Negotiating Body established by the second special session of the World
Health Assembly is deemed to be a treaty that is subject to the
requirements of article II, section 2, clause 2 of the Constitution of
the United States, which requires the advice and consent of the Senate,
with two-thirds of Senators concurring.
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