Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
thus, given that demands were being made by individual member states without
strident opposition from the vast majority of other state parties, it is reasonable to
conclude that the majority of member states in fact supported the wHo's methods,
with their silence equating to tacit approval. It can similarly be concluded that the
wHo's actions in the context of the SarS pandemic were consistent as opposed to
conflicting with the intentions of its collective membership. This argument is perhaps
best summarised by the same senior WHO legal official, who stated:
I don't think wHo exercises independent power. what wHo does is respond to the
direction of its member states, but at any one time not all member states will agree about
what wHo's actions should have been or should be. and wHo sometimes has to act,
particularly in emergencies, on the basis of its mandate without consulting or getting
agreement from all member states. Having said that, the basis that it acts then is on the
basis of the expertise and the authority it has as an expert body in public health. even
having said that, it would still always seek to have, to inform, and to take into account the
views of as many member states as it can, particularly those that are directly involved in
the emergency. and so I wouldn't call it independence; I'd call it some kind of moderated
independence where we will act sometimes, and while not everyone of our member states
will always agree with our actions, we would not act without agreement of at least many
of our member states, and without consulting member states.
12
Independent Action?
this is not to suggest, however, that the wHo's response to the 2003 SarS pandemic
was orthodox. In what may be a highly unusual, even exceptional move, the wHo
bureaucracy did act independently, rapidly, and forcefully to the SarS threat—a point
that acknowledged by several senior WHO officials on more than one occasion, as well
as in several official publications (WHO 2003f, 5-7) and by Gro Harlem brundtland,
seek any specific permission from member states prior to responding to the SARS
threat is not, therefore, in question. the wHo's senior leadership took full advantage
of the discretionary capacity granted to it, reallocating the organisation's temporal,
financial, material, and normative resources to combat the SARS virus.
this point, however, does not equate to arguing the wHo's leadership took these
actions without regard to their impact upon member states. nor is it being suggested
that the wHo failed to advise member states of the action its bureaucracy was taking.
rather, it has been reported that the key decision makers were very well aware of the
potential impact of their actions on member states, and these were discussed with
the governments of those countries directly affected by SarS prior to the action
being taken. as Heymann has noted,
the director general in her deliberations and in her thinking asked 'does this fit in with what
the mandate of the Organization?'. We were very careful in how we approached this—we
