<p id="">Feature image created by AI</p><p id="">By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D.<strong id="">, &nbsp;</strong>Children’s Health Defense</p><div data-rt-embed-type='true'><p>The <a href="https://www.hhs.gov/press-room/hhs-reinstates-task-force-on-safer-childhood-vaccines.html">U.S. Department of Health and Human Services</a> (HHS) today announced it has reinstated the Task Force on Safer Childhood Vaccines, a federal panel created by Congress to improve the safety of childhood <a href="https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender_category/toxic-exposures/vaccines-toxic-exposures/">vaccines</a>.</p>
<p>The announcement comes one day before the deadline for the agency to respond to a lawsuit alleging that U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. violated federal law by failing to set up the task force when he took over as agency secretary.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://childrenshealthdefense.org/wp-content/uploads/Flores-II-v.-Kennedy-Jr.-Press_Redacted.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">lawsuit</a>, filed in May by attorney Ray Flores and funded by <a href="https://childrenshealthdefense.org/">Children’s Health Defense</a> (CHD), alleged that Kennedy was violating the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/99th-congress/house-bill/5546">National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986</a>, which requires the HHS secretary to form a vaccine task force promoting vaccine safety and report on its progress to Congress every two years.</p>
<p>“This is a great day for children and a great day for CHD,” Flores told <a href="https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/">The Defender</a>. He said that tomorrow he plans to file a dismissal “without prejudice,” which means that if the agency fails to follow through on its commitment, he can refile the lawsuit.</p>
<p>CHD CEO Mary Holland celebrated the news. “We are grateful to Secretary Kennedy for fulfilling his duty under the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act. It took nearly 30 years for HHS to do this, but at last, we have an HHS secretary who is following the law on this vital issue.”</p>
<p>The 1986 act requires HHS to establish a task force that includes the<a href="https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender_category/policy/health-policy/"> health</a> secretary, the commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and the directors of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).</p>
<p>Since Congress passed the act over 35 years ago, no health secretary has reported to Congress on steps taken to make vaccines safer, according to Flores.</p>
<p>In 2018, when Kennedy worked as a lawyer, he and co-counsel <a href="https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/aaron-siri-rfk-polio-vaccines-the-media-and-me-wsj-op-ed/">Aaron Siri</a> <a href="https://childrenshealthdefense.org/wp-content/uploads/ICAN-vs.-HHS-COMPLAINT-3.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">sued HHS</a> to obtain copies of the biennial reports from the task force. The lawsuit revealed that no reports were ever submitted. HHS created the first task force in 1990, but it was disbanded in 1998, with no reports produced.</p>
<p>The 1986 act includes a broad provision allowing citizens to sue the secretary if the requirements are not met, which was the basis for Flores to file the lawsuit.</p>
<p>Holland also offered kudos “to attorney Ray Flores, who recognized this unfulfilled obligation and set this HHS action in motion. Citizens can and do create real change for the better.”</p>
<p>At the end of July, <a href="https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/rfk-jr-seeks-extra-time-explore-early-resolution-vaccine-safety-lawsuit-hhs/">Kennedy requested</a> two additional weeks to respond to the lawsuit.</p>
<p>In today’s announcement, just before the extension’s deadline, NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya said:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 40px;">&#8220;By reinstating this Task Force, we are reaffirming our commitment to rigorous science, continuous improvement, and the trust of American families. NIH is proud to lead this effort to advance vaccine safety and support innovation that protects children without compromise.&#8221;</p>
<p>The Task Force will work with the CDC vaccine advisory committee to provide regular recommendations on the development and refinement of childhood vaccines that cause fewer and less serious adverse reactions than existing vaccines, and to improve <a href="https://childrenshealthdefense.org/vaccines/">vaccine</a> development, production, distribution and adverse reaction reporting.</p>
<p><strong>Related articles in The Defender</strong></p>
<ul>
<li aria-level="1"><a href="https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/lawsuit-targets-rfk-jr-failing-task-force-childhood-vaccine-safety/">Lawsuit Targets HHS for Failing to Set Up Task Force on Childhood Vaccine Safety</a></li>
<li aria-level="1"><a href="https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/rfk-jr-seeks-extra-time-explore-early-resolution-vaccine-safety-lawsuit-hhs/">RFK Jr. Seeks Extra Time to Explore ‘Early Resolution’ in Vaccine Safety Lawsuit</a></li>
</ul></div><h4 id=""><a href="https://childrenshealthdefense.org/authors/brenda-baletti/" id=""><strong id="">Brenda Baletti, Ph.D.</strong></a></h4><p id="">Brenda Baletti, Ph.D., is a senior reporter for The Defender. She wrote and taught about capitalism and politics for 10 years in the writing program at Duke University. She holds a Ph.D. in human geography from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a master's from the University of Texas at Austin.</p><p id="">This article was <a href="https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/breaking-hhs-reinstates-task-force-safer-childhood-vaccines-response-chd-lawsuit/" id="">originally published by The Defender</a> — Children’s Health Defense’s News &amp; Views Website under <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" id="">Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0</a>. Please consider<a href="https://childrenshealthdefense.org/about-us/sign-up/" id=""> subscribing to The Defender</a> or<a href="https://childrenshealthdefense.org/about-us/donate/" id=""> donating to Children’s Health Defense</a>. &nbsp;</p><p id="">‍</p>

HHS Reinstates Task Force on Safer Childhood Vaccines in Response to Children’s Health Defense Lawsuit 

Announcement comes one day before deadline to respond to lawsuit alleging the agency’s failure to set up task force violated law

<h2 id="">A high school student scores a major win against vaccine mandates</h2><div data-rt-embed-type='true'><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">HISTORIC FEDERAL COURT RULING IN NY!<br><br>Sarah Doe WINS!!!<br><br>16-year-old Sarah Doe must be allowed back to school this September. <br><br>Her medical exemption to vaccination is granted in federal court today.<br><br>Case backed by <a href="https://twitter.com/ChildrensHD?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ChildrensHD</a> <br><br>Here is Sarah in front of the courthouse <a href="https://t.co/qcMintC9i0">pic.twitter.com/qcMintC9i0</a></p>&mdash; Teachers for Choice (@teacher_choice) <a href="https://twitter.com/teacher_choice/status/1955362186064482351?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 12, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div><h2 id="">How British police are cracking down on ‘catcalling’</h2><div data-rt-embed-type='true'><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">REPORT: Female UK police officers are going undercover by dressing in tight clothes to elicit catcalls from men so they can then arrest them, according to the Telegraph. <br> <br>The Surrey Police Department is proud to announce that multiple men have been arrested for… <a href="https://t.co/AwAiURS97S">pic.twitter.com/AwAiURS97S</a></p>&mdash; Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) <a href="https://twitter.com/CollinRugg/status/1955427614405038150?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 13, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div><h2 id="">RFK Jr. wants you to join a gym</h2><div data-rt-embed-type='true'><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">RFK Jr: “I found out a long time ago that if you hang out at a bar, you&#39;re probably gonna get drunk.<br><br>If you hang out at a barbershop, you&#39;ll probably end up getting a haircut.<br><br>And if you hang out at the gym, you&#39;re probably gonna get in shape.”<br><br>“So every Sunday, try to get… <a href="https://t.co/g685x9Z2qz">pic.twitter.com/g685x9Z2qz</a></p>&mdash; MAHA Action (@MAHA_Action) <a href="https://twitter.com/MAHA_Action/status/1954611434840637470?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 10, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div><h2 id="">DC Leftists gather to harass police officers cracking down on crime</h2><div data-rt-embed-type='true'><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">🚨 JUST IN: Leftists have gathered to HECKLE AND BOO police officers fighting vioIent crime in Washington, DC<br><br>THIS is how far gone the Democrat Party is.<br><br>WE THE PEOPLE back the blue! KEEP FIGHTING, OFFICERS! <a href="https://t.co/FFlUgAx8Mn">pic.twitter.com/FFlUgAx8Mn</a></p>&mdash; Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) <a href="https://twitter.com/nicksortor/status/1955821379993133431?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 14, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div><h2 id="">Arkansas wins a major victory against the medical mutilation of minors</h2><div data-rt-embed-type='true'><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">BREAKING: The 8th Circuit has upheld Arkansas’ ban on irreversible “gender transition” procedures for minors.<br><br>Sterilizing and mutilating healthy children is not health care — it’s abuse.<br><br>Every doctor, hospital, and activist who enabled this should be held accountable. <a href="https://t.co/LlvmbcJRTS">pic.twitter.com/LlvmbcJRTS</a></p>&mdash; Dr. Simone Gold (@drsimonegold) <a href="https://twitter.com/drsimonegold/status/1955705959327707378?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 13, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div><h2 id="">Celebrities consider fleeing America because of Trump</h2><div data-rt-embed-type='true'><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">See Ya!<br><br>Late night host Jimmy Kimmel announces he has secured Italian citizenship - declares Donald Trump&#39;s presidency is &quot;so much worse&quot; than he ever imagined.<br><br>Can we hope he will ACTUALLY leave the country? <a href="https://t.co/Q1cPTRlcg1">pic.twitter.com/Q1cPTRlcg1</a></p>&mdash; Conservative Brief (@ConservBrief) <a href="https://twitter.com/ConservBrief/status/1954157401449418861?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 9, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div><h2 id="">Legacy media mourn the death of a Hamas terrorist posing as a ‘journalist’</h2><div data-rt-embed-type='true'><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Amnesty International and media organizations are mourning the loss of Hamas “journalist” Anas Al Sharif who praised the Oct. 7 massacre, posed for smiling selfies with Hamas leaders, and led a terrorist cell.<br><br>Here&#39;s footage of him at Agam Berger’s release.<br><br>I won&#39;t be mourning. <a href="https://t.co/8S5WfbNHhm">pic.twitter.com/8S5WfbNHhm</a></p>&mdash; Yehuda Teitelbaum (@chalavyishmael) <a href="https://twitter.com/chalavyishmael/status/1955030958081745359?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 11, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div><h2 id="">Chicago mayor says Trump is ‘intimidated’ by his ‘intellectual prowess’</h2><div data-rt-embed-type='true'><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson: “I do believe Donald Trump has always been intimidated by the intellectual prowess of black men.”<br><br>Bro really thinks he has &quot;intellectual prowess.&quot; 🤣<a href="https://t.co/ijvNS6wbDl">pic.twitter.com/ijvNS6wbDl</a></p>&mdash; CJ Pearson (@thecjpearson) <a href="https://twitter.com/thecjpearson/status/1955685502562230298?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 13, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div><h2 id="">Congressional testimony: UN and NGOs facilitated the border invasion</h2><div data-rt-embed-type='true'><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Democrats gave “$6 billion to a conglomerate of United Nations agencies and over 200 NGOs” to facilitate the illegal immigration invasion of America<br><br>Confirmed: It was the United Nations who tried to take down America with the Democrat regime.<br><br>Mike Howell “I currently serve as… <a href="https://t.co/GULnZKMPpi">pic.twitter.com/GULnZKMPpi</a></p>&mdash; 🌍 Breaking News of the Day (@BNOfTheDay) <a href="https://twitter.com/BNOfTheDay/status/1955690550772084737?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 13, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div><h2 id="">A family uses food stamps to buy ‘lunch’</h2><div data-rt-embed-type='true'><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">American says she’s broke so she needs to head to the Dollar General to buy lunch with her EBT Food Stamps<br><br>THIS is why American taxpayers are upset about the EBT program <a href="https://t.co/CL8c03jmpA">pic.twitter.com/CL8c03jmpA</a></p>&mdash; Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) <a href="https://twitter.com/WallStreetApes/status/1955745619726995886?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 13, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div><p id="">‍</p>

This week on X

‍Here are this week’s top ten tweets on X, according to The Gold Report’s analysts

Glyphosate ‘Greatly Increases’ Risk of Liver Damage in Kids and Adults

Early childhood exposure to the widely used herbicide was linked to chronic inflammation and cellular damage throughout the body 

<p>By Ramesh Thakur, Brownstone Institute </p><p id="">On 27 May 2022, Carl Bildt, the former prime minister (PM) of Sweden, wrote: ‘The pandemic offers important lessons for managing future challenges, particularly climate change’, which ‘warrants urgent attention.’ In chapter 12 of <a href="https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/1630692816" id=""><em id="">Our Enemy, the Government</em></a>, I described ten points that climate change and pandemic management policies have in common on their respective agendas:</p><ol id=""><li id="">The claim to represent The Science™ on the basis of an artificially manufactured scientific consensus;</li><li id="">A mismatch between abstract mathematical and computer models and hard data and evidence;</li><li id="">The deliberate spreading of fear and panic in the population as a means to grab attention and spur drastic political action;</li><li id="">In order to sustain the scientific consensus, the exaggeration of supporting evidence, discrediting of contrary evidence, silencing of sceptical voices, and marginalisation and mockery of dissenters;</li><li id="">The enormous expansion of powers for the nanny state that bosses citizens and businesses because governments know best and can pick winners and losers, yet in practice, a record of overpromising and underdelivering;</li><li id="">Framing the agenda as primarily a moral crusade and dissent and noncompliance as immoral;</li><li id="">Widening inequality between the laptop class ‘everywheres’ and the working class ‘nowheres,’ or the ‘have yachts’ versus the ‘have nots;’</li><li id="">Hypocrisy, meaning the mismatch in the behaviour of the exalted elites who preach to the deplorables the proper etiquette of abstinence to deal with the emergency, and their own insouciant exemption from a restrictive lifestyle;</li><li id="">The disconnect between industrialised and developing countries in responsibility for the crisis and the distribution of costs for addressing it;</li><li id="">The rise of the international technocratic elite in a de facto alliance with national governing, bureaucratic, scientific, and corporate elites.</li></ol><h3 id="">The World Court Delivers a Weighty Opinion</h3><p id="">A recent pronouncement from the World Court adds another link to the chain that connects climate change to pandemic management policies. International organisations are taking over an increasing range of functions from the governments of states, posing a <a href="https://www.spectator.com.au/2025/06/people-versus-the-blob/" id="">threat both to national sovereignty and to democracy</a> with national bureaucrats working in tandem with international technocrats – the lanyard class – to overrule citizens’ choices. With unelected and unaccountable judges displacing elected governments as the real rulers, judicial overreach is emerging as a threat to the democratic nation-state.</p><figure class="w-richtext-figure-type-video w-richtext-align-center" style="padding-bottom:" data-rt-type="video" data-rt-align="center" data-rt-max-width="" data-rt-max-height="" data-rt-dimensions="" data-page-url=""><div><iframe src="https://read.amazon.com/kp/card?asin=B0CL99S2K6&preview=inline&linkCode=kpe&ref_=cm_sw_r_kb_dp_QDM55S6EBAEXSSD67K1H;linkCode=kpe&ref_=cm_sw_r_kb_dp_NGJ5F1AFZ624NAF7YH8G" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0"></iframe></div></figure><p id="">Over the past two decades, climate activists have essentially adopted a smug ‘We’ve won’ tone on a three-part ‘scientific consensus’ on adverse impacts of rising CO2, human activity being primarily responsible for the rise in emissions, and the imminence of climate catastrophe without urgent drastic action. </p><p id="">All three parts have come under attack in recent times. Many serious scientists have always been sceptical of the ‘Science is settled’ claim on the unique rise in harmful emissions caused by the fossil-fuel driven industrial revolution. More and more have begun to speak out on the growing panic over a climate emergency. Their response to climate catastrophisation can be summarised succinctly as ‘Rubbish!,’ albeit expressed in more polite and scientifically neutral language. The doom merchants have a three-decade long catastrophic record on predictions of catastrophes. The <a href="https://clintel.org/world-climate-declaration/" id="">World Climate Declaration</a> issued two years ago has been signed by 2,000 experts from 60 countries.</p><p id="">In the meantime, there’s been public awakening, rising resentment, and firming opposition to the questionable assumptions, significant harms, and outright futility of climate targets encapsulated in the slogan Net Zero – in an age when slogans are mistaken for sound and fully costed policy. Consequently many Western governments have begun to backtrack, none more so than the Trump administration that also recognises the strategic folly of climate policies that have demonstrably failed to end global reliance on fossil fuels, added to energy costs while making supply increasingly less reliable, and transferred wealth and industrial might to China.</p><p id="">Faced with growing expressions of scientific doubt, public backlash, and policy reversals, activists have switched from trying to persuade governments to weaponising the courts to force compliance with their agenda. Article 92 of the <a href="https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter/full-text" id="">United Nations Charter</a> describes the International Court of Justice (ICJ, commonly called the World Court) as the UN’s ‘principal judicial organ’ and all member states are automatically parties to the ICJ. Chapter IV of its <a href="https://www.icj-cij.org/statute" id="">Statute</a>, which is annexed to the UN Charter, deals with Advisory Opinions. Article 96 of the Charter stipulates that the General Assembly may request the ICJ ‘to give an advisory opinion on any legal question’ or authorise another UN body to seek one.</p><p id="">In 2021, inspired by the youth group Pacific Island Students Fighting Climate Change, Vanuatu launched a campaign for an advisory opinion. On 29 March 2023, the UN General Assembly requested an advisory opinion from the ICJ on the <a href="https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/187/187-20250723-pre-01-00-en.pdf" id="">legal obligations and liability of states on climate change</a>. On 23 July, the court published its <a href="https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/187/187-20250723-adv-01-00-en.pdf" id="">Advisory Opinion</a>. Relying primarily on IPCC reports which ‘constitute the best available science on the causes, nature and consequences of climate change’ that calls to mind New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern’s demand that her Department of Health was to be the ‘<a href="https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/coronavirus-jacinda-ardern-dismisses-nationwide-lockdown-speculation-on-social-media/I2FTKPSA36LJIDNLBFIYECXDHM/" id="">single source of truth</a>’ on Covid, and on the widespread acknowledgment of the adverse effects of climate change across the UN system (paragraph 74), the court concluded that climate change is ‘an urgent and existential threat’ (73).</p><h3 id="">Intersection with the WHO’s Pandemic Management Agenda</h3><p id="">The ICJ advisory on climate liability intersects with the issue of democratic sovereignty vis-à-vis the WHO on five points. First, falling trust in the competence, integrity, and truthfulness of public institutions and media has had a flow-on effect in a new willingness to question other policy domains, including climate change and net zero. </p><p id="">In turn this has triggered a growth in support for radical ethnonationalism that is being tapped by populist centre-right parties. ‘<a href="https://archive.org/details/privatetruthspub0000kura" id="">Preference falsification</a>’ is a concept that previously was invoked with reference to authoritarian regimes. It denotes the condition where individuals conceal their true preferences in order to conform to official and/or societal pressure. A good example is this anonymous (of course) online <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/womens-rights-are-under-attack-but-whos-reporting-it/news-story/8bea7908388f9e1a66c123f175eed7b9" id="">comment</a> on the viciously contested issue of trans vs. women’s rights: ‘<em id="">We live in a period of human history where the thoughtful and the intelligent must stay silent for fear of offending the fragile and the stupid</em>.’ Many everyday folks support the rights of women to have their own spaces without wishing any harm upon trans people quietly living and enjoying their lives, but dare not risk saying so openly for fear of losing their job, expulsion from their friendship group, or social media pile-on.</p><p id="">To ensure that such an outcome aligns with official policy preferences, governments engage in narrative management whereby a false impression is deliberately fostered of scientific consensus, the policy option is said to be based in that agreed science, and imbued with moralism to the point of sacralization. This is the Covid lesson that Bildt was alluding to. For it to succeed and the illusion of consensus and moralism maintained, any scepticism and criticism by scientists and dissenting voices among the commentariat and the public must be suppressed and the dissenters punished. </p><p id="">They must not be permitted to realise that there is a significant group of others who share their dissenting point of view, let alone that they might even constitute a silent (because they have been silenced by censorship and coercion) majority. But when enough people do realise, a tipping point is reached that generates a preference cascade. </p><p id="">Once this happened with Covid, people were more receptive to the idea that governments lie to survive and maintain control over people. We now see the dam breaking, for example, on the criminal consequences and other economic and social pathologies of the long eulogised mass immigration in the UK, Europe, and US.</p><p id="">Third, the ICJ justified its conclusion on the reasoning that the ‘adverse effects of climate change’ such as rising sea levels, drought, desertification, and natural disasters, ‘may significantly impair the enjoyment of certain human rights,’ including ‘the right to health’ (379). </p><p id="">The ‘most significant primary obligation to prevent significant harm to the climate system and other parts of the environment…<em id="">applies to all States, including those that are not parties to one or more of the climate change treaties</em>’ (409, emphasis added).</p><p id="">Fourth, the opinion is not binding but will <a href="https://blogs.law.columbia.edu/climatechange/2025/07/24/the-icjs-advisory-opinion-on-climate-change-an-introduction/" id="">shape climate governance</a> around the world in myriad ways in the years to come in academia, courts, bureaucracies, and civil society. Vanuatu’s special envoy on climate change, Ralph Regenvanu, believes that <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07-24/icj-climate-change-decision-world-court/105566582" id="">the ICJ opinion will shift discussions</a> from one of ‘voluntary commitments’ to reduce emissions, to one about binding obligations under international law. It will embolden activist courts and judges around the world who are committed to the climate crusade. The logic underpinning the advisory prepares the ground for individual liability, speech restrictions, and legal intimidation.</p><p id="">This exact same argument applies with respect to the compliance pull of the pandemic accords. In general, legal norms are more effective in regulating state behaviour. But in specific instances, a particular law may be breached while a political norm shapes a decision – on acts of commission or omission – through a calculation of reputational costs. </p><p id="">On mass atrocity crimes, for example, the 1948 Genocide Convention imposes legal obligations on states to act. By contrast, the 2005 Responsibility to Protect (R2P) principle is a global political norm that creates a moral responsibility but no legal duty on outside states to prevent and halt atrocities. However, even R2P has to be interpreted and applied in the broader context of binding obligations on states under national, international, humanitarian, and human rights laws.</p><p id="">The pandemic accords’ legal effect will lie in strengthening the Pandemic Prevention and Preparedness Treaty and One Health as global norms. In combination with the amended International Health Regulations IHR) that come into force next month for most states unless they had opted out in July, and which must and will be read in parallel with the Pandemic Treaty, the political reality is that member states will be enmeshed into the international pandemic management framework led by international technocrats.</p><p id="">In the 15 World Court judges’ unanimous opinion, climate obligations are legal, substantive, and enforceable, not just aspirational. Previously vague obligations have been elevated to binding duties under customary international law to prevent significant environmental harm and cooperate internationally to uphold fundamental human rights in the face of escalating climate risks. Yet, all governments engage in policy trade-offs involving economic goals, development assistance, and energy security that triangulates emissions, affordability, and reliability. Who exactly will enforce the ICJ opinion on the geopolitical heavyweights like China, Russia, and America?</p><p id="">Of course, WHO recommendations are not legally binding obligations on treaty signatories. The treaty explicitly states that nothing in it gives the WHO or the Director General ‘any authority to direct, order, alter, or otherwise prescribe’ any policy; ‘or to mandate or…impose any requirements’ that states parties ‘take specific actions’ like travel bans, vaccination mandates, or lockdowns (Article 22.2). </p><p id="">However, nothing in the Covid experience inspires confidence about the willingness and capacity of political leaders to resist WHO recommendations in this global institutional milieu. But if by some mistake they should do so, public health activists could seek an advisory opinion from the World Court that the health of no country’s citizens is safe unless that of the citizens of all countries is safe and therefore every state, including non-signatories of the pandemic accords, incurs a legal responsibility of compliance. Failure to do so will leave a country exposed to claims for restitution from those who may have been harmed.</p><h3 id="">The US as the Counterweight to both Globalist Agendas</h3><p id="">The final connecting link between the net-zero and pandemic accords agendas is the critical role of the Trump administration, owing to the US normative weight and geopolitical heft in the design and management of world order, in resisting the effort to impose a tyranny of global governance on democratic nation states. </p><p id="">On 29 July the US Department of Energy issued a <a href="https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2025-07/DOE_Critical_Review_of_Impacts_of_GHG_Emissions_on_the_US_Climate_July_2025.pdf" id="">report</a> that rejects the core tenets of climate alarmism, notes that US policies will ‘have undetectably small direct impacts on the global climate,’ and insists that the dominant energy systems deserve to be celebrated for their role in ‘the rise of human flourishing over the past two centuries.’ Accordingly, the US is set to revoke many restrictive climate regulations in the push for continued global energy dominance. </p><p id="">The previously smug climate activists reacted with fury. A <em id="">New York Times</em> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/31/climate/trump-climate-skeptics-science-report.html" id="">article</a> on 31 July quoted climate scientists who attacked the report for using ‘cherry-picked’ data to support a ‘scattershot collection of oft-debunked skeptic claims’ in ‘a coordinated, full-scale attack on the science.’ To have attracted such flak, the DOE report must be over the target.</p><p id="">On 21 January, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c391j738rm3o" id="">withdraw the US from the WHO</a>. The <a href="https://www.hhs.gov/press-room/state-department-hhs-rejects-amendments-to-international-health-regulations.html" id="">US withdrawal from the IHR</a> was announced jointly by Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Secretary of State Marco Rubio on 18 July. In explaining the decision in a video message, Kennedy said: ‘The first reason is <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5ID0s-oLyA&ab_channel=U.S.DepartmentofHealthandHumanServices" id="">national sovereignty</a>.’ Nations that ‘accept the new regulations are signing over their power in health emergencies,’ or even when confronting nebulous ‘potential public health risks,’ to ‘an unelected international organization that could order lockdowns, travel restrictions, or any other measures it sees fit.’ </p><p id="">Kennedy acknowledged that the US, given its powerful position in the world, could ‘simply ignore the WHO.’ But few others are in this position of luxury. Consequently: ‘Even though many of these amendments are phrased to be non-binding, as a practical matter, it’s hard for many countries to resist them, especially when they are dependent on the WHO funding and its partnerships.’ The need, therefore, is not to rush into a new global health framework absent ‘a thorough public debate,’ Kennedy said, but to ‘strengthen national and local autonomy to hold global organizations in check and to restore a real balance of power.’</p><p>‍<a href="https://brownstone.org/author/ramesh-thakur/" id="">Ramesh Thakur</a></p><p id="">Ramesh Thakur, a Brownstone Institute Senior Scholar, is a former United Nations Assistant Secretary-General, and emeritus professor in the Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.</p><p><a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" id="">Published under a</a><a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" id=""> Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License</a>. For reprints, please set the canonical link back to the<a href="https://brownstone.org/articles/global-governance-vs-democratic-sovereignty/"> original Brownstone Institute Article</a> and Author.</p>

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