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and established practice and, additionally, from its duty of care as an impartial,
technical organisation charged with ensuring the eradication of disease.
Indeed, if any aspect of the wHo's management of the 2003 SarS pandemic
was classified as an example of independent power or agency slack, it would be
the bureaucracy's earlier decision to send a team of scientists to china without a
prior invitation from the chinese government. this action, which precipitated
the bureaucracy's criticism of the chinese authorities, clearly violated article 2(d)
of the WHO constitution. By sending the team without any specific request or
invitation, the bureaucracy appeared to contravene both its constitutional authority
and the sovereignty of one of its member states. again, however, it is important to
note the context in which the wHo bureaucracy took this action prior to classifying
it as an example of independent action undesired by its principal.
as highlighted above, the wHo (1995a, para. 3(1-6)) had previously been
commissioned to explore new disease-eradication policies and procedures. this
request, issued by member states in 1995 in association with an express request
to revise the IHr, granted the wHo bureaucracy additional discretionary capacity to
explore new policies and operational procedures that would enhance its ability to fulfil
its delegation contract to eradicate communicable disease threats. Moreover, at the time
the 2003 SarS pandemic commenced, the IHr revision process was ongoing. as such,
it can be assumed that the wHo's bureaucracy was authorised to exercise discretion
in how it responded to the SarS threat given that no formal legal framework had
been established and given the fact that the additional capacity to explore alternative
disease-eradication policies and procedures had not been rescinded.
Furthermore, and especially significantly, member states had already tacitly
sanctioned the wHo's interventionist approach to communicable disease threats
when they passed resolution wHa54.14 Global Health Security: epidemic alert
and response in 2001. In passing this resolution, member states expressed their
unambiguous support for the multiple programmes and initiatives that the wHo's
bureaucracy had begun testing under the authority to revise the IHr (see wHo
2001a, esp. para. 1.3, 3.1-3.3). by default, they also sanctioned several new disease-
eradication operational policies and procedures, including the Global outbreak alert
and response network (Goarn), which had been established in april 2000 (wHo
2000). according to this framework, the wHo is required to send a rapid response
team whenever a disease outbreak is reported to conduct a risk assessment, offer
technical advice and support, initiate field investigations, assemble epidemiological
data and conduct research, and communicate any findings with the wider international
community (wHo 2001b). thus, the bureaucracy's actions were entirely reasonable
and consistent with the authority it had been previously granted by member states.
Undesired Actions
as noted above, it has been suggested that in issuing the global alerts and travel
advisories and publicly criticising the chinese government, the bureaucracy took
actions that were undesired by member states (Fidler 2004, 141; cortell and Peterson
