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The New World Health Organization

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 April 2017

Walter R. Sharp
Walter R. Sharp*
Affiliation:
Department of Government, College of the City of New York
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Extract

The signing of the Constitution for a World Health Organization, on 22 July 1946 in New York City, is likely to be a landmark in the history of international cooperation for public health and medicine. At this ceremony the representatives of sixty-one nations affirmed their intention of bringing all inter-governmental health action under the aegis of a single agency which, it is hoped, will soon embrace the entire family of states. The new “Magna Carta” of health envisages an organization far wider in scope and function than any previous undertaking in this sphere of international collaboration. Still more significant is the new approach to the problem of disease embodied in the WHO Constitution—an approach which takes full cognizance of the revolutionary advances of the past decade in preventive and curative medicine.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Journal of International Law , Volume 41 , Issue 3 , July 1947 , pp. 509 - 530
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of International Law 1947

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References

1 Countries accepting were: Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, Eire, Finland, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Portugal, Siam, Sweden, Switzerland, and Transjordan. Only Afghanistan, Rumania, and Yemen failed to respond.

2 The Final Act, WHO Constitution, and Arrangement were signed on behalf of sixty-one states; the Protocol on behalf of sixty. Among the signatories to all four instruments were the U.S.S.R., Byelorussia, and the Ukraine—subject to subsequent approval.

3 By 1 June 1947 fourteen states had indicated acceptance: China and the United Kingdom (by signature without reservation as to approval), and Albania, Canada, Ethiopia, Iran, Italy, Liberia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, Syria, and Transjordan (by deposit of instruments of acceptance with the Secretary-General of the United Nations).

4 The Commission consists of “eighteen states entitled to designate persons to serve on it,” these states having been elected by the Conference. They are: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Egypt, France, India, Liberia, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Peru, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, U.S.S.R., Venezuela, and Yugoslavia. In making the selection the Conference gave special regard to the desirability of a broad geographical representation, particularly since the members of the Interim Commission are expected to act collectively for all the signatories to the WHO Constitution.

5 This Report is reproduced in the Journal of the Economic and Social Council, No. 13, 22 May 1946. The Technical Preparatory Committee consisted of sixteen public health experts designated by the Council from the following countries: Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Czechoslovakia, Egypt, France, Greece, India, Mexico, Norway, Poland, United Kingdom, United States, and Yugoslavia. The U.S.S.R. was invited to send an expert but did not do so. Representatives of the Office, the League Health Organization, UNRRA, and the Pan-American Sanitary Bureau attend the sessions of the Committee in a consultative capacity. The Committee met in Paris for three weeks during March-April 1946.

6 Accounts of the League’s activities in the health field may be found in Mander, L. A., Foundations of Modern World Society, Stanford, 1941, Chap. I; Davis, H. E., ed., Pioneers in World Order. New York, 1944, pp. 193–208 (by Boudreau, Frank G.)Google Scholar; de Huszar, G. B., ed., Persistent International Issues, New York, 1947, Chap. 4 (by Strode, George K.)Google Scholar; and Winslow, C. E. A., “International Organization for Health,” in Report of the Commission to Study the Organisation for Peace, New York, 1944.Google Scholar

7 Art. 9 of the WHO Constitution. The Technical Preparatory Committee proposed “Conference” as the name for the deliberative organ of WHO—a term which would have better conformed to the terminology employed in similar UN specialized agencies; curiously enough, the delegates at Hunter College insisted on adopting the term “Assembly” because, in their view, it connoted a more representative type of organ.

8 Arts. 13, 14, 18. The provisions dealing with conventions and regulations are discussed below.

9 Arts. 24–25. A proposal introduced by the Ukraine to have the “Big Five” permanently represented on the Board received the support of only one other delegation.

10 Art. 5. States members of the United Nations are not bound by this time restriction (Art. 4).

11 Dr. Parran also served as President of the Conference.

12 Art. 53. The Interim Commission ran into certain snags in its initial conversations with the Pan American Sanitary Bureau, though there is no reason to suppose that, given a spirit of conciliation and good will on both sides, mutually satisfactory arrangements cannot eventually be worked out. The Twelfth Pan American Sanitary Conference at Caracas (January 1947), in authorizing the negotiation of a working agreement with WHO, took the position that the PASB should retain its present name with the subtitle “Regional Office of the WHO.”

13 Art. 53. Only the Arab states, Paraguay, and the Dominican Republic refused to cast their votes for adoption of the two compromise formulas governing the appointment of regional directors and regional staffs.

14 Art. 1. The Draft Proposals submitted by the Technical Preparatory Committee listed seven different ways by which this broad aim might be furthered, but the Conference Committee on Scope and Functions felt that there would be a signal advantage, from the psychological standpoint, if a single, all-inclusive objective were put forward at the beginning of the Constitution.

15 Arts. 70 and 71, as part of the Chapter entitled “Relations with Other Organizations,” stipulate that any formal agreements entered into with other inter-governmental agencies shall be subject to approval by a two-thirds vote of the Health Assembly. Consultative arrangements with non-governmental agencies, on the other hand, may be worked out at the staff level, although, in the case of national organizations, the consent of the government concerned must be obtained.

16 In the enumeration of “Functions” in Article 2 of the Constitution, reference is made three times to “coöperation with other specialized agencies where necessary.” Arrangements have already been initiated by the Interim Commission for the setting up of joint WHO-ILO expert committees on industrial hygiene and medical care and a similarly constituted joint WHO-FAO committee on nutrition.

17 Art. 2 (p). Belgium, the Netherlands, and Sweden contended that health insurance properly belonged to the International Labor Organization.

18 Among the delegates at the Conference there was strong support for including specific mention of “displaced persons” in the section of the Constitution covering forms of assistance which might be requested by the United Nations. Because of the insistent opposition of the Soviet representatives, however, it was finally decided to adopt a more general phraseology referring to “special groups, such as the peoples of trust territories.”

19 Art. 23. Such recommendations may be adopted by simple majority vote of the Assembly.

20 Dept. of State Publication 2703, Conference Series 91, p. 16.

21 Art. 21. On the other hand, the Conference yielded to the views of the Soviet and Latin-American delegations in refusing to include in the regulatory powers of WHO the prevention of the importation of products “not conforming to standards adopted by the Health Assembly.”

22 Under the 1933 Convention for Aerial Navigation, the Office international d’Hygiène publique could submit to the contracting parties a proposal of amendment suggested by any one of them and a government’s approval could either be expressly given or implied “from the fact that it refrains from notifying the latter of any objections within twelve months.” The Chicago Civil Aviation Convention authorizes the Council of ICAO, by two-thirds vote, to adopt “annexes” (recommended international technical standards and practices) which become effective within three months, or such longer period as the Council may prescribe, “unless in the meantime a majority of the contracting States register their disapproval with the Council.”

23 Work cited, p. 17.

24 Article 76 provides further that the Organization, upon authorization by the General Assembly or in accordance with any agreement between WHO and the United Nations, may request the Court for an advisory opinion “on any legal question arising within the competence of the Constitution.”

25 Art. 7. The point was made by the Canadian delegate that in the remote contingency of resort by a Member state to bacteriological warfare it would be essential to withhold from such Member epidemiological information which might reveal the effectiveness of its action.

26 It should be noted, in passing, that until WHO itself comes into being the preparatory work is being financed from sums advanced by the Secretary-General of UN from his Working Capital Fund. The General Assembly, on 14 December 1946, approved a recommendation from the Economic and Social Council that a sum not exceeding $1,300,000 be lent to the Interim Commission to meet its budgetary needs for 1946—47, on condition that the amount actually spent will be repaid to the United Nations within two years after WHO comes into being. Preliminary estimates for 1948, approved by the Interim Commission in April 1947 “as the best available index to the possible cost” of financing the permanent Organization during its initial year, call for an expenditure budget of $4,800,000, of which $1,175,000, however, would be earmarked for repayment of a portion of the UN loan and the first instalment of a working capital fund. The World Health Assembly will in no way be legally bound to accept these estimates.