Has "almost every government in the world" signed the World Health Organization (WHO) pandemic treaty, allowing the Geneva-based organization to dictate vaccine policy in the event of a future pandemic? No, that's not true: The claim conflates the WHO pandemic treaty, which is still in the drafting stages, with a United Nations political declaration that was approved on September 20, 2023. Neither document authorizes the WHO to force vaccines on any nation.
The claim appeared in a Hungarian-language video (archived here) on TikTok on October 24, 2023, under the title "The pandemic treaty - is the goal the creation of a world government?" The speaker says:
A very important event happened recently at the U.N. General Assembly in New York...what we're talking about is: Almost every government in the world signed the pandemic treaty drawn up by the WHO, or the World Health Organization, which may usher in a brutal healthcare dictatorship in the future, the likes of which have never been seen in the history of humanity... This treaty will grant the WHO and its leadership the power to install a world government.
The TikTok then plays a recording of an interview with journalist Árpád Szakács published by internet site Ultrahang TV on September 22, 2023. Szakács is chief adviser to Dóra Dúró, vice-president of the Mi Hazánk (Our Homeland) party, which is spearheading a petition drive aimed at blocking Hungary's accession to the WHO pandemic treaty. He says:
In essence, we're talking about a 13-page document, and the first and most important thing is that if a new pandemic strikes, everybody should get the vaccine. This is the directive for mandatory vaccination.
(All translations from Hungarian by Lead Stories).
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Wed Oct 25 03:15:35 2023 UTC)
The seven-minute TikTok video makes several claims about the WHO pandemic treaty. This fact-check will focus on the claims related to the signing of the document and its provisions on vaccine policy.
The WHO pandemic treaty aims to correct the "serious shortcomings in preparedness at national and global levels for timely and effective prevention and detection of, and response to, health emergencies" that became apparent during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to an unedited advance version of the draft obtained by the media on October 16, 2023. The text is slated for completion in May 2024, according to the WHO.
This is not the same as the 13-page document titled "Political Declaration of the United Nations General Assembly High-level Meeting on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response," which the U.N. General Assembly approved on September 20, 2023, and adopted without a vote on October 5, 2023. The subtitles in the TikTok video refer to this document as "the first part of the pandemic treaty," which it is not - it is a resolution.
The Political Declaration does not assert any "directive for mandatory vaccination," as the TikTok video claims. It mentions the word "vaccine" or "vaccination" 23 times, mostly in reference to ensuring that all countries have equitable access to shots, boosting production capacities, and to encouraging international cooperation in vaccine development.
Article 64 calls on governments to:
take measures to counter and address the negative impacts of health-related misinformation, disinformation, hate speech and stigmatization, especially on social media platforms, on people's physical and mental health, including countering vaccine hesitancy
while Article 71 urges health authorities to:
expand vaccine coverage to prevent outbreaks as well as the spread and re-emergence of communicable diseases, including for vaccine-preventable and eradicated diseases as well as for ongoing eradication efforts.
Nina Schwalbe, a professor at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, described the Political Declaration as a "long, dull read with few actual commitments" in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, (archived here), on August 31, 2023. There is no evidence that it portends a "brutal healthcare dictatorship," as the TikTok claims.
Similarly, the October 16, 2023, draft of the WHO pandemic agreement contains no language authorizing the WHO to implement vaccine policy in signatory states. Indeed, Article 3(2) affirms that:
States have, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and the general principles of international law, the sovereign right to legislate and to implement legislation in pursuance of their health policies.
Other Lead Stories fact-checks on Hungarian claims about the WHO and pandemics can be found here.
