Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
behaviour in the case of SarS. Importantly, however, it focuses only on those aspects
of the wHo's response to SarS that Fidler, cortell, and Peterson have identified
as unauthorised, unprecedented, and conflicting with the preferences of its member
states. this includes the WHO's issuance of global alerts, geographically specific
travel advisories, and criticism of the chinese government. as little or no mention
has been made of the other features of the wHo's response, it has been assumed
that the remaining elements are accepted as falling within the organisation's general
competence and authority. thus, the argument here concentrates on establishing
that the wHo was authorised to issue the global alerts and travel advisories and to
criticise of one of its member states.
Several assumptions underpin this argument and the context in which the wHo
acted. The first is that IOs are actors in their own right (Hawkins
et al. 2006; see also
barnett and Finnemore 2004, 1-10, 20-44). the second assumption is that the 2003
SarS pandemic was an exceptional epidemiological event. More precisely, although
the chinese authorities' decision to break with customary international law of reporting
disease outbreaks was not in itself particularly abnormal, their decision to ignore their
responsibility aided the new contagion's emergence and rapid dissemination. when
the nature of the contagion then combined with spreading events and international air
travel, governments, public health officials, and the WHO alike were presented with
multiple, simultaneous outbreaks of a previously unknown disease. the subsequent
numbers of affected healthcare workers and facilities additionally converged with
the pervasive uncertainty surrounding the rapid international spread of the SarS-
associated coronavirus, and, in contrast to many other disease outbreaks, the new and
unknown disease directly threatened the populations of developed countries. when
viewed collectively, these factors culminated in a very atypical epidemiological
event materialising—one that was arguably exceptional.
Equally significant is the context in which the WHO took these controversial actions.
at the time that the SarS-associated coronavirus began to spread internationally
the wHo was in the midst of revising the International Health regulations (IHr)
(Fidler 2004, 142). as the only treaty designed to combat the international spread
of infectious diseases, the IHr is an integral component of the wHo's disease-
eradication delegation contract with its member states. In 1995, recognising that the
IHr legislation was inadequate to the task, the wHo's member states authorised its
bureaucracy to undertake an extensive reform of the policies and methods it used
to combat infectious diseases (wHo 1995b; wHo 1995a). to that end, at the 48th
world Health assembly (wHa) the member states passed two resolutions: wHa48.7
revision and Updating of the International Health regulations and wHa48.13
Diseases Prevention and control: new, emerging, and re-emerging Infectious
Diseases. these required the director general to instigate a comprehensive
programme to evaluate and update the legislative framework and to develop new
'strategies enabling rapid national and international action to investigate and to
combat infectious disease outbreaks and epidemics' (wHo 1995a). It was intended
that any changes to the wHo's
modus operandi
would then be reflected in new
draft legislation, which, once ratified by member states, would create a revised
