Is The World Health Organization taking over parliaments and pushing for a “One World Government?”
We saw this claim on Twitter in response to the World Health Organisation (WHO) announcing a new Universal Healthcare Coverage Handbook. Director-General of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, tweeted on 13th March that it was joint project between the WHO and the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU). We noticed the top comments under the tweet were filled with aggressive responses. Some specifically mentioned a theory that the WHO is slowly conspiring to gain control over parliaments across the world.
A trigger for this claim being spread is an article published the same day on a site called The Expose. The article suggests that this Universal Healthcare Coverage Handbook proves the WHO’s intent to establish a “One World Government.”
It goes on to claim that the WHO aims to change International Health Regulations such that its Director-General would be able to declare public health emergencies of international concern (PHEIC) and “unilaterally dictate what must be done in response” with or without consent from its member nations. This would bring them one step closer to the end goal of a “one world totalitarian state which is under the rule of a very few.”
Over the past few years, the “One World Government” or “New World Order” theory has become popular across different groups of conspiracy theorists. The core of this conspiracy is that a group of elites wish to gain control of the world for their own profit through manipulating global events and public narratives; for instance by manufacturing the COVID-19 virus.
Multiple fact-checks have debunked these theories, but they are firmly believed by its proponents, who continue make false claims with this core theory as a premise. In particular, many claims center around the WHO being a tool of the global elite (in cahoots with different governments), setting the stage to hand over power and sovereignty.
We took a close look at the article, which is based around a few unsubstantiated core premises. For instance, that the WHO is “a puppet organization that is funded by Globalist billionaires,” and that it is in cahoots with the Chinese Community Party.
Rather than elaborating on how the recent handbook announcement proves a push towards “One World Government,” the article instead makes claims which we could not corroborate in our own research. For example, that the WHO is conducting “secret negotiations” to amend International Health Regulations (IHR) or that it has the power to impose economic consequences on dissenting nations.
Instead, our research shows that the WHO has regularly published statements on different meetings being conducted about potential amendments to the IHR. The over 300 amendments proposed are still in early discussion stages and were, in fact, proposed by member states rather than the WHO itself.
In addition, when we examined IHR and WHO documents, it is also clear that the WHO has no authority to impose sanctions of any kind on its member nations. Membership in the WHO is voluntary, and the organisation functions to consolidate the interests of its member nations. While the WHO might criticise a country for not cooperating, there is nothing it can do to enforce its recommendations.
In fact, the new Universal Healthcare Coverage Handbook is an example of how the WHO is empowered only to make recommendations and offer resources to its members. This is not the first Universal Healthcare Coverage handbook – versions were also released in 2020 and 2021. Rather than setting out “what must be done,” the handbooks comprise different case studies and explore different ways healthcare legislation can be structured.
Therefore, suggestions that the WHO plans to enforce a “One World Government” and that the new Universal Healthcare Coverage Handbook is a step towards this goal are completely unsubstantiated. We give this claim a rating of false.
While the base conspiracy might sound preposterous, the misrepresentation of announcements such as this recent one from the WHO have become a standard move by certain platforms and publications. Given that the actual documents are lengthy and not easily accessible by the average social media user, there is an ever-present risk of misinformation and disinformation being spread. The immediate negative response to the Director-General’s tweet demonstrates how such misinformation colours the public perspective of the WHO and other large organisations.
