transparency
Transparency mandate embedded into the proposed amendments to the International Health Regulations: Rationales underpinning the proposed Bureau’s text
On 17 April 2024, the World Health Organization (WHO) published the Proposed Bureau’s text in advance of the 8th meeting of the Working Group on Amendments to the International Health Regulations (2005) (WGIHR) which meets from 22–26 April 2024. Accompanying the 64 page Bureau text is an accompanying, non-public document on the rationales underpinning the proposed Bureau’s text for WGIHR 8. Third World Network
(TWN) and Geneva Health Files (GHF) have reported on aspects of the Bureau’s rationale document. This piece will focus on the equity provisions of the Bureau text and their rationale underpinning their textual choices. The Rationales document (originally prepared on 15 April 2024) was updated on 17 April 2024 to include the “rationale for sub-paragraphs 8(d) and 8(e) of Article 13 Public health response, including access to health products”.
Inserted on the cover page of the Bureau’s 64 page text is this note: “Additions to and deletions of the current IHR text appear in bold and strike-through respectively”. Article 13 on Public health response, including access to health products now includes three new sub-paragraphs (13.7, 13.8, and 13.9).
Article 13.7 states:
WHO shall support States Parties and coordinate response activities during public health emergencies of international concern, including pandemic emergencies. To facilitate equitable access to health products, this support shall include, as necessary, coordinating with mechanisms and networks that facilitate equitable allocation and distribution of health products, including through technology transfer on mutually agreed terms. The aforesaid mechanisms and networks may include, but are not limited to, regional ones and those established under relevant international agreements.
Article 13.7 envisions that WHO plays a coordinating role among State Parties during public health emergencies of international concern. This coordinating role involves the facilitation of equitable access to health products, “including through technology transfer on mutually agreed terms.”
In its rationale, the Bureau notes:
Paragraph 7
The Bureau underscores that the only “Parties” to the Regulations are States Parties and the WHO Secretariat. Therefore, IHR provisions exclusively bear responsibilities either for States or for the WHO Secretariat. Therefore, considering:
That Article 2(a) of the WHO Constitution states that “In order to achieve its objective, the functions of the Organization shall be: (a) to act as the directing and co-ordinating authority on international health work”; and
That, in the current global landscape, there are numerous mechanisms and networks that could contribute to equitable access to health products, and that such mechanisms and networks are operating under the auspices of entities with which WHO in in official relations with;
the Bureau is proposing to establish the obligation for WHO to coordinate with relevant mechanisms and networks. However, the Bureau recognizes that, since entities other than States Parties and WHO bear no obligations under IHR provisions, the WHO Secretariat cannot be held accountable of the ultimate outcome of its coordinating efforts.
Article 13.8(a) states:
8. After the determination of a public health emergency of international concern, pursuant to Article 12 of these Regulations, the Director-General shall:
(a) Conduct, and periodically review and update, an assessment of the availability and affordability of health products needed for the public health response; publish such assessment(s); and consider the assessment(s), when available, in connection to temporary recommendations pursuant to Articles 15, 17, 18, and 49 of these Regulations;
In its rationale, the Bureau makes a direct link to the WHO transparency resolution.
Letter (a): The Bureau notes that (i) this Sub-paragraph is partially derived from resolution WHA72.8 (2019); and (ii) the phrasing aim at capturing the eventuality that when the first set(s) of temporary recommendations are issues, the assessment(s) referred to in the Sub-paragraph may not be available.
Article 13.8(e) states:
8. After the determination of a public health emergency of international concern, pursuant to Article 12 of these Regulations, the Director-General shall:
(e) support States Parties, upon their request, to strengthen local production; achieve quality assurance through regulatory approval of locally manufactured products; and facilitate research and development and technology transfer on mutually agreed terms.
The Bureau provides a detailed rationale for programs and activities to strengthen local production. The rationale mentions, inter alia, the World Local Production Forum,, H-TAP (Health Technology Access Pool), and mRNA Technology Transfer programme.
Letter (e): In support of resolution WHA74.6 on local production, the WHO Secretariat supports member states to promote sustainable local production of quality assured health product through:
Organising the World Local Production Forum (WLPF), WHO initiative that provides Member States and the global community with a regular platform to shape strategies, galvanize collective action, and foster partnerships on sustainable local production to improve timely and equitable access to quality assured health products: https://www.who.int/initiatives/world-local-production-forum
Providing Specialized Technical Assistance to help recipients achieve compliance with international regulatory norms and standards, so that they can attain WHO prequalification (PQ) for priority products or services, or emergency use listing (EUL) for unlicensed products to be used in the context of a public health emergency, and/or supply quality-assured products required by United Nations (UN) Agencies, their partners and procurement agencies serving WHO Member States:
https://www.who.int/teams/regulation-prequalification/lpa/technical-assi...
https://www.who.int/teams/regulation-prequalification/lpa
Assessing the ecosystem for local product. WHO assists governments to conduct holistic situational analyses with a tool to identify gaps in key areas for promoting sustainable and quality local production, such as policy coherence, the business environment, regulations and quality assurance, infrastructure, and the market landscape of the national industry: https://www.who.int/teams/regulation-prequalification/lpa/situational-an...
Bio-manufacturing training Hub: https://www.who.int/initiatives/biomanufacturing-workforce-training-init...
Through H-TAP (Health Technology Access Pool), bridging the health technology access gap by providing an evidence-based, transparent framework and process for selecting, securing and supporting the transfer of technology with the goal of promoting innovation and the sustainable, geo-diversified production of health products.: https://www.who.int/initiatives/who-health-technology-access-pool
mRNA Technology Transfer programme: https://www.who.int/initiatives/the-mrna-vaccine-technology-transfer-hub
In relation to the proposed Bureau’s text, published on April 17th, one thing that pops out of the text is the transparency mandate contained in Article 13.9(c) which calls upon state parties to publish “relevant terms of government-funded research agreements for health products needed to respond to a public health emergency of international concern, as well as information, where relevant, on pricing policies regarding these products and technologies, in order to support equitable access.
Article 13.9 states:
-
9. Pursuant to paragraph 5 of this Article, and paragraph 1 of Article 44 of these Regulations, States Parties shall, to the fullest extent possible, according to their national law and available resources, and upon request of other States Parties or WHO, undertake to collaborate with each other and to support WHO-coordinated responses activities, including through:
(a) supporting WHO in implementing actions outlined in paragraph 8 of this Article,
(b) engaging with, and encouraging, relevant non-State actors1 operating in their respective jurisdictions, to contribute towards equitable access to health products needed to respond to a public health emergency of international concern;
(c) publishing relevant terms of government-funded research agreements for health products needed to respond to a public health emergency of international concern, as well
as information, where relevant, on pricing policies regarding these products and technologies, in order to support equitable access.
Footnote 1 :For the purpose of these Regulations, “non-State actors” shall be understood as defined in the WHO Framework of Engagement with non-State actors, adopted by the Sixty-ninth World Health Assembly through resolution WHA69.10 (2016), and any future amendment thereto.
The Bureau’s rationale states:
Through the proposed New Paragraph 9, the Bureau intends to outline the nature of the collaboration that States Parties may undertake under these Regulations to contribute to response efforts, and to equitable access to health products under those circumstances. Chapeau: The Bureau intends to emphasize that extraordinary efforts by States Parties may be needed. Letters (b) and (c): As indicated in the rationale of the proposed Article 13A, presented at resumed WGIHR7, the Bureau notes that the wording of this Sub-paragraph is derived from the draft Pandemic Agreement presented at INB8.
The post Transparency mandate embedded into the proposed amendments to the International Health Regulations: Rationales underpinning the proposed Bureau’s text appeared first on Knowledge Ecology International.
Exclusive: Unite officers accuse Graham & team of breaching collective to ‘crush’ staff
National Officers’ group complains to exec and legal about ‘anti-trade union’ actions, intimidation by union management and breach of collective agreement
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham and her management team have been accused of contempt for Unite staff’s collective agreement on grievances – and of a string of other abuses, including the use of legal action to silence and intimidate workers and avoid transparency, banning workers from their workplace under an implied threat of dismissal – and putting people into ‘special measures’ to control the union’s internal democracy.
A damning letter from Unite’s ‘Officers’ National Committee’ (ONC) explains that the group has been forced to take the ‘unprecedented’ step of going outside the usual collective agreement to notify the union’s elected executive and its legal director of their grievance, in the hope of getting some action to resolve the grim situation. It then goes on to outline the serious abuses they say they are facing – and to imply that if they are not resolved, staff will be balloted for strike action:
ONC Collective Grievance over Unite management’s interpretation of the Unite Grievance Collective Agreement and the Dignity At Work Collective Agreement.
A Collective Grievance under section 5 of the Unite Grievance Collective Agreement is required to be presented to the Director of Human Resources however because our Collective Grievance is about the way Procedures are being interpreted and changed and how the content of the employees’ grievances necessitates additionally an unprecedented involvement of the Legal Director and the senior lay officials of the Executive Council.
The ONC feels justified in making this decision because repeated representations are getting us nowhere. If employees cannot feel that the Grievance Collective Agreement is to be respected by the Union then as trade unionists we know how to respond. But out of respect for our members and to provide the Executive Council, as the ultimate employing body, with the opportunity to hear our concerns that the rights and protections of Unite workers are being undermined and denied we want to avoid a dispute.
The length of time that grievances and investigations are taking to reach a conclusion is not acceptable in a modern workplace. When employees are waiting months after submitting a grievance due to a refusal of some to participate in the process, being banned from your workplace when not even suspended, and an application of “special measures” to distort democratic structures – none of these are acceptable or are in the traditions of Unite.
The use of suspension powers should only be used with clear justification and always with a review to evaluate the impact of suspension on an individual’s mental health before the suspension stretches to weeks and months.
Using legal privilege to justify enforcing a refusal to allow an employee to present their grievance is disgraceful and anti-trade union. If we believe that part of our role is to challenge power in the workplace where that power is used to suppress workers seeking transparency, expressing their genuinely held views or seeking protection from abuse.
Threats of legal action for raising a grievance cannot be ignored or endorsed. It is contrary to ACAS guidance, a breach of our collective agreement on grievance and Dignity At Work and a denial of natural justice. For any worker to exhibit the courage to voice their concerns about their opinions of inappropriate behaviour against them or others is a right not to be denied. If it is to be crushed or swept away simply because the employer is more powerful and we do nothing about such unfairness in the workplace then who are we standing up for?
In seeking to declare a grievance invalid the employer has cited the issues of trust and confidence. This, in our view, is a further matter of deep and unprecedented concern. Loss of trust and confidence is a legitimate reason for dismissal by an employer so to reference it is to further intimidate the worker. Its use by our management is nonsensical since by definition any grievance is reliant upon trusting your employer to investigate and adjudicate on the matters raised.These concerns raised by the ONC are based on the senior management team of the union having agreed them which is why in our view the Executive Council is the only body that can hold a special meeting to restore the integrity of the Collective Agreements entered into with the Bargaining Units of the Unite workforce.
We want the following as the resolution to our Collective Grievance. 1) All grievances raised by employees in the union should be investigated, with Unite as our employer honouring its’ obligations by following collective agreements with the bargaining units. 2) The senior management team should work constructively with the ONC to establish a new protocol to ensure grievance and disciplinary investigations should be carried out in an appropriate and timely manner to balancing the right to be heard and natural justice alongside resolving issues that lead to investigations.
Emphases added by Skwawkbox
The explosive allegations compound the long list of alleged issues with Graham’s running of Unite. Her tenure as Unite boss has also been marked by a string of other allegations – which neither she nor the union has denied – including destruction of evidence against her husband in threat, misogyny and bullying complaints brought by union employees. She is also embroiled in a defamation lawsuit, and a tribunal case for discrimination, brought by Irish union legend Brendan Ogle for the union’s treatment of him and comments made about him by Graham and her close ally Tony Woodhouse.
She has also been alleged by insiders to have:
- banned Unite officials and national banners from pro-Gaza protests
- banned and smeared films and books exposing the ‘Labour antisemitism’ scam
- placed an official under investigation who refused to cancel a Palestine solidarity fringe event at Labour’s 2023 annual conference
- told her chief of staff to threaten a soon-to-retire official with the loss of a pension bonus if he did not soften his support for Palestinians
Her supporters also prevented debate and votes on Gaza at a meeting of the union’s elected executive earlier this month. She campaigned for the general secretary position on the basis of a focus on protecting workers and disavowing political interference.
A senior union insider told Skwawkbox:
The Exec would never normally get involved in employee management matters. They would never usually get involved in employee grievances. The officers have emailed them directly to basically say we are getting nowhere with this general secretary, she is out of control using the worst of employer tactics against union employees, we know you don’t deal with our grievances but you are the union’s ultimate body and we are saying to you – do something or we will ballot.
Unite was contacted for comment:
- It’s clear from this that ONC feels trust has broken down between Unite staff and its management – how has Ms Graham allowed things to fall apart so badly?
- Unite would never – I hope – tolerate another employer treating staff in this manner, so why is Unite doing so?
- What is Ms Graham’s explanation for trying to declare grievances invalid rather than resolving them – especially (and ironically) on grounds that ‘trust and confidence’ in the person(s) making the grievance(s) are the issue, which employees are regarding as attempted intimidation?
- The ONC says that Unite is using legal privilege as an excuse for preventing workers from presenting grievances. Is this true?
The union did not respond by the deadline for publication.
SKWAWKBOX needs your help. The site is provided free of charge but depends on the support of its readers to be viable. If you’d like to help it keep revealing the news as it is and not what the Establishment wants you to hear – and can afford to without hardship – please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here to set up a monthly donation via GoCardless (SKWAWKBOX will contact you to confirm the GoCardless amount). Thanks for your solidarity so SKWAWKBOX can keep doing its job.
If you wish to republish this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.
Good Governance in Nigeria: Rethinking Accountability and Transparency in the Twenty-First Century – review
In Good Governance in Nigeria: Rethinking Accountability and Transparency in the Twenty-First Century, Portia Roelofs critiques conventional Western ideas of “good governance” imposed in Africa, and specifically Nigeria, through fieldwork and historical analysis. Stephanie Wanga finds the book a grounded and nuanced argument for alternative, locally shaped and socially embedded models of governance.
Good governance: a phrase laden with meaning and history. Good governance in Africa? Even more trouble at hand. Colonial and neocolonial projects in Africa have been justified in the name of good governance. However, to assume a sense of foreboding when one hears the phrase “good governance” is also to assume – and even to locate – its meaning in a particular provenance. This is exactly what Portia Roelofs, in her book Good Governance in Nigeria: Rethinking Accountability and Transparency in the Twenty-First Century, wants to trouble.
The author wants to draw out a re-conception of good governance: namely, as conceived of by everyday people rather than, say, the World Bank or other institutions whose projected definitions come with immense repercussions.
Roelofs, a lecturer in politics at King’s College London, has spent time in Nigeria, including undertaking research in the universities of Ibadan and Maiduguri. It is from her fieldwork in Nigeria that she wants to draw out a re-conception of good governance: namely, as conceived of by everyday people rather than, say, the World Bank or other institutions whose projected definitions come with immense repercussions. To do so, this work “places the voices of roadside traders and small-time market leaders alongside those of local government officials, political godfathers and technocrats…[theorising] ‘socially embedded’ good governance.” Using this method, she defends the argument that “power must be socially embedded for it to be accountable”, in opposition to those who cast social embeddedness as sullying politics and leaving room for all the varied forms of corruption that may hinder good governance.
If society and social demands might be seen as an enabler of corruption […] the necessary flip side is that it can also represent a constraint on the actions of those in power.
Indeed, Roelofs extends Peter Ekeh’s erudite analysis (in Colonialism and the Two Publics in Africa) of a “third space” that defies the binaries of political science’s beloved public and private spheres. Ekeh presented a space from which Nigerian (and wider African) politics could be more fruitfully analysed, a space that was “neither absolutely rational-bureaucratic public authority [nor]…patrimonial authority conceived as the personal or individual authority of a Big Man’s private household”. Roelofs presents evidence that “points towards the existence of more social forms of governance which are neither personalistic […] nor ethnic, but speak to a more general sociality”, which provides the basis for the notion of governance that is “both public and yet includes some social elements and the further possibility that this may constitute good governance”. If society and social demands might be seen as an enabler of corruption (something that is not, the author reminds us, a uniquely African problem), the necessary flip side is that it can also represent a constraint on the actions of those in power. In fact, the insistence on detaching the state from its societal embeddedness increases the opacity and unaccountability of the state.
Roelofs’ methodology may be controversial to those devoted to hyper-abstraction, but for those of us who theorise as we live rather than save theory for the books, good governance must always be socially embedded. However, Roelofs is engaging with real biases that run deep in both political theory and development studies, and that have had immense consequences. As she writes, “While personal contact between voters and politicians is pathologized in scholarly analysis of Africa, it is celebrated by political scientists working in Western democracies.” Social-embeddedness has been a kind of dirty word in a lot of the mainstream writing on African politics – it is this entanglement of the political with the social that causes diagnoses such as “the cancer of corruption” and other terms that pathologise African politics every which way.
This is a book that is quite close to me in terms of method, as a person who roots herself primarily in political theory but believes ardently in the ways other methods and sources, including history and fieldwork, must educate political theory. Along with this, the book is supposed to demonstrate “the associated possibilities for decolonising the study of politics”. One might question the extent to which this book rigorously engages this latter goal, but it continues in the tradition of thinkers including Thandika Mkandawire (to whom the book is dedicated) and others like Ndongo Samba Sylla and Leonce Ndikumana.
Roelofs contests the dominant World Bank discourse on good governance that is projected as universally accepted and uncontroversial. She proposes an alternative mode of governance whereby the people decide for themselves the terms of engagement – something that the World Bank has in multiple, egregious ways denied the continent. This very act is noteworthy – the “problem” of African politics has been repeatedly deemed “too embedded in social and material relations”, leading to the oft-cited ills of neopatrimonialism, corruption, etc.
Roelofs is self-conscious of her position as a white woman trying to turn the tables on colonial, trope-filled discourse and asks for thoughts on how such a move might be more conscientiously made.
However, though this goal of challenging what good governance means is named explicitly at the outset, it would have been useful to see the precise ways in which the book operates as a (potentially) decolonial act. Roelofs is self-conscious of her position as a white woman trying to turn the tables on colonial, trope-filled discourse and asks for thoughts on how such a move might be more conscientiously made. Indeed, many have questioned how “Africanists” – often white, often working outside the continent – have positioned themselves at the centre of changing tides in African political discourse. The racial blindspots (or worse) underlying African Studies must be called out alongside those of the financial institutions; the neocolonial project is a concert of efforts.
The author hints at this issue, but often in diplomatic terms. As Robtel Neajai Pailey writes, one needs to “speak into existence the proverbial elephant in the room of development: race”. However, one must balance this move with the recognition that all of us, including white academics, are responsible for taking the decolonial bull by the horns – that one must not shirk responsibility via the false generosity of “making space” for “people of colour”. The hard work of taking responsibility and being responsible must be consciously and explicitly engaged.
Another danger the book sometimes falls into is to play up the narrative of what Africa can teach the world.
Another danger the book sometimes falls into is to play up the narrative of what Africa can teach the world. This viewpoint is problematic in that it may suggest a need to peg the meaningfulness of work done in Africa to its importance for the Big Bad West (and elsewhere). The greater purpose may instead be to unearth meanings that only have value locally, to study Africa for its own sake, and not for the West’s education. The question of where meaning should be focused relates to Toni Morrison’s observations on racism as a distraction. This burden leaves a person desperately trying to prove that they, too, are worthy; that they, too, have important things to show the world, unaware that by that very token they are upholding a particular standard of worthiness.
Despite this, Roelofs’ book serves as both rigorous, extended analysis of the good governance discourse and a worthwhile historical introduction to the troubles that have besieged state-making in Africa. Roelofs keenly dissects several key historical moments in Nigeria to tease out how they theoretically shape contemporary understandings of good governance.
Roelofs’ book serves as both rigorous, extended analysis of the good governance discourse and a worthwhile historical introduction to the troubles that have besieged state-making in Africa.
To this end, she writes about how good governance in Nigeria is often tied to the person (and myth) of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, who, to some, was the best President Nigeria never had. However, there is more to the picture than the “modernising, elite-led, progressive” elements that epitomise notions of good governance in Nigeria and that Awolowo represented. Working through the contested ideas that surround good governance, Roelofs comes up with what she calls the “Lagos model”. This is a homegrown approach, made of a shared set of reference points acting as a yardstick against which governance is evaluated. Roelofs names the reference points as “an epistemic claim to enlightened leadership, a social claim to being embedded in one’s constituency and a material claim about the sharing of resources”. Roelofs shows that the ideas of good governance grounded in epistemic superiority were in tension with more populist visions that emphasised the need for satisfying short-term economic desires and connecting with leaders. From this dialectic “a full and rounded picture of legitimate leadership as containing epistemic, social and material aspects” emerges. The struggle to balance each of these three aspects is what produces good governance, and the gaps in managing the give and take across the three is what gives various kinds of actors, nefarious and otherwise, entry to “fix” what appears broken.
Overall, the book is accessible and unpretentious, even while quite history-heavy. Though it may lack the poetry and passion of a Mudimbe or Mbembe, its appeal to democratise understandings of good governance demands the reader’s engagement reckon. It is a refreshingly democratic take on what it means to govern well, by rooting the definition in what everyday people in a specific context truly seek.
Note: This post gives the views of the author, and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, or of the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Image credit: Tolu Owoeye on Shutterstock.
INB9: KEI written statement
INB 9
Written statement by Knowledge Ecology International
28 March 2024
Transparency
The negotiations on a WHO pandemic agreement should be more transparent. The negotiating texts with attributed country positions should be public and the meetings should be webcast. These are reasonable expectations. The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) operates in this way; it even allows stakeholders to listen to informal negotiations on texts and has demonstrated an ability to adopt treaties on topics of considerable controversy and with commercial consequences.
There is considerable paranoia and misinformation about the WHO in social media, and the unnecessary secrecy of this negotiation is not helpful. While the texts are often leaked, both industry and several well-informed civil society groups have access, and some can afford to attend the negotiations, the general public is locked out. The lack of transparency erodes confidence in the WHO in general and the pandemic agreement in particular.
In the negotiating text, KEI had hoped there would be an article or chapter on transparency, and a commitment to implement WHA72.8 on transparency, and we urge delegates to protect and enhance the several areas where transparency is currently mentioned.
Sanctions
A number of countries currently face economic and technology sanctions. It is generally recognized that such sanctions should not extend to the supply of medical products, or the financing, transport, or other services required to provide those products. We are disappointed that some WHO members in this negotiation have opposed language proposed as Article 13.1bis that would ensure that the humanitarian exceptions to sanctions are effectively implemented.
Technology transfer
There is clearly an interest among negotiators to facilitate the scale-up and decentralization of the manufacturing of pandemic-related countermeasures in an emergency, but also sharp divisions among the parties about how to address this need.
Going forward, consideration should be given to an additional type of pooling approach, one that more closely resembles some industry pools, or some pooled procurement mechanisms, and which can provide stronger incentives to share technology by limiting the benefits of the pool to parties that opt-in and meet certain obligations for membership.
One such pooling agreement could involve rights in government-funded R&D, particularly the rights to use inventions, regulatory data, know-how, and access to cell lines and other biologic resources.
In addition to the pooling of rights from public sector-funded R&D, there could be technology buyout pools, with the benefits of the buy-outs being limited to the parties paying for the buyouts.
The requirements to join any of these pools would be scaled according to the incomes and stage of development of the members, and while the benefits of the pools would be limited to the members, every state would have an opportunity to contribute and join the pool.
The proposal should be seen as a complement to other measures on technology transfer and not a substitute.
The post INB9: KEI written statement appeared first on Knowledge Ecology International.
Exclusive: Unite strike fund ‘collapses’ by over two thirds amid fall in membership
Graham and team not providing official member numbers – and no finances signed off since 2021
Birmingham bin lorries stand idle during a strike under the previous Unite leadership
Unite’s strike fund has ‘collapsed’ by more than two thirds from the level current general secretary Sharon Graham inherited from the McCluskey administration – a level that allowed strike payments of £70 a day that Graham tried to claim credit for when she took over the job. The collapse appears to be driven by fall in Unite’s membership.
At the start of Graham’s tenure, Unite had built a strike fund of £35m, able to pay striking members enough to maintain large, lengthy disputes. However, as of last week the fund had fallen to just £11m in less than three years and Unite’s recent announcement of increased membership fees is explicitly linked to the collapse.
Skwawkbox understands that there have been ‘significant’ falls in membership numbers and dues, but the union management is not disclosing an exact figure – and insiders say that no finances have been ‘signed off’ since 2021. However, the latest working figures show that Unite’s cash account has also fallen by £13m, more than ten percent.
Unite has paid out more in strike support in the last two years, but the falling member numbers and an apparent lack of planning for the replenishment of funds have left the union looking ill-prepared for future battles, with only around eight months’ worth of funds in its reserve based on the last two years’ spending.
The planned subs rise, from 1 April, of a maximum of 22p a week with many paying much less, is apparently well0 short of what would be required to maintain the strike pay outgoings of the last two years, let alone rebuild the reserve.
One senior insider told Skwawkbox that the lack of transparency and the ‘collapse’ of the fund were a serious concern and that morale is ‘rock bottom’ among union officials because of the management’s conduct, including the lack of opposition to Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Ms Graham allegedly told elected officers that ‘Palestine is not a service Unite offers members’.
SKWAWKBOX needs your help. The site is provided free of charge but depends on the support of its readers to be viable. If you’d like to help it keep revealing the news as it is and not what the Establishment wants you to hear – and can afford to without hardship – please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here to set up a monthly donation via GoCardless (SKWAWKBOX will contact you to confirm the GoCardless amount). Thanks for your solidarity so SKWAWKBOX can keep doing its job.
If you wish to republish this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.
KEI Comment to NIST on Transparency of March-in Proceedings
On December 8, 2023, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) issued a Request for Information regarding the “Draft Interagency Guidance Framework for Considering the Exercise of March-In Rights” (88 FR 85593).
Today KEI submitted comments to NIST regarding the transparency of march-in proceedings. The Draft Interagency Guidance Framework for Considering the Exercise of March-In Rights published by NIST includes a footnote that states, “All portions of the march-in proceeding are closed to the public and are held confidential.” As our comments note, this statement “is at odds with the statute, the regulation implementing the statute, a World Health Organization (WHO) resolution on transparency, and widely accepted notions of good governance.”
KEI’s comments outline how this overly broad statement in the guidance runs counter to:
- 35 U.S.C. 202(c)(5)
- 37 CFR § 401.6 (4)
- WHA72.8 – Improving the transparency of markets for medicines, vaccines, and other health products, and
- The NIH’s practices in previous march-in cases.
A PDF of our full comments is available here: KEI-Comments-NIST-March-in-Guidance-Transparency-5Feb2024
Note: NIST’s RFI follows a nearly year-long interagency review of the march-in guidance, which was announced in tandem with the NIH’s rejection of the Xtandi march-in petition in March 2023. KEI submitted a series of comments on several different important topics for NIST to consider as they finalize the guidance.
The post KEI Comment to NIST on Transparency of March-in Proceedings appeared first on Knowledge Ecology International.
EB 154: KEI statement on the Follow-up to the political declaration of the third high-level meeting of the General Assembly on the prevention and control of non-communicable diseases
On Wednesday, 24 January 2024, Knowledge Ecology International (KEI) delivered the following statement on the Follow-up to the political declaration of the third high-level meeting of the General Assembly on the prevention and control of non-communicable diseases.
The innovation for new treatments for cancer and rare diseases has been impressive, but access is generally assumed to be very unequal.
The statistical evidence of access disparities is often incomplete, missing, or poorly organized.
The WHO should provide the 77th WHA with a report on measures that could be undertaken to systematically monitor and report on access to new drugs, vaccines, and cell and gene therapies for the treatment of cancer and rare diseases.
This report could include the implementation of WHA72.8 on transparency, as regards reporting the units of products sold by country.
WHO should also provide technical assistance on the ability of member states to create exceptions to patent rights for treatments that can be classified as services, such as autologous CAR-T.
The post EB 154: KEI statement on the Follow-up to the political declaration of the third high-level meeting of the General Assembly on the prevention and control of non-communicable diseases appeared first on Knowledge Ecology International.
Trickett tables motion demanding disclosure of government legal advice on Gaza genocide
Left-wing Labour MP Jon Trickett has tabled a parliamentary ‘Early Day Motion’ (EDM) demanding that the government reveal the advice its legal experts have given it over Israel’s war crimes and South Africa’s powerful and thorough genocide case against Israel before the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
The motion reads:
That this House understands that questions have been raised internationally about the legality of the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza; recognises that in November 2023 UN experts raised the alarm about the risk of genocide in Gaza; highlights the UN General Secretary’s reasons for invoking Article 99 that there is a high risk of total collapse of the humanitarian support system in Gaza, which would have devastating consequences; further highlights his comments to the Security Council that international humanitarian law includes the duty to protect civilians and to comply with the principles of distinction, proportionality and precaution and that the laws of war also demand that civilians’ essential needs must be met, including by facilitating the unimpeded delivery of humanitarian relief; notes the Spanish Prime Minister’s comments that he has serious doubts that Israel is complying with international humanitarian law; further notes the letter signed by prominent Israeli public figures to the Attorney General in December 2023 which said there have been explicit calls to commit atrocious crimes against millions of civilians, providing evidence of the discourse of annihilation, expulsion and revenge; acknowledges the case South Africa has brought to the International Court of Justice claiming Israel’s treatment of Palestinians is tantamount to genocidal actions; and calls on the Government to publish in full the legal advice it has received from its law officers regarding the situation in Gaza, particularly in the run up to UN votes, and the legality of the UK export licensing of arms to the Israel.
Tory MPs have spoken in the Commons to try to dismiss South Africa’s case as having ‘no legal merit’ – farcical when the ICJ, by accepting the case, has already decided that Israel has a case to answer. The disclosure of the government’s legal advice would be expected to reveal that the Tories have been told the same by their own lawyers – which means the government will fight to avoid it and broad support among MPs for the motion is vital to increase pressure.
Since it was tabled yesterday, only eighteen MPs have signed. Use theyworkforyou.com to contact your MP and tell them to support the motion.
SKWAWKBOX needs your help. The site is provided free of charge but depends on the support of its readers to be viable. If you’d like to help it keep revealing the news as it is and not what the Establishment wants you to hear – and can afford to without hardship – please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here to set up a monthly donation via GoCardless (SKWAWKBOX will contact you to confirm the GoCardless amount). Thanks for your solidarity so SKWAWKBOX can keep doing its job.
If you wish to republish this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.
Howard and Iraq: delayed documents deserve discussion
A number of 2003 Cabinet records, presumed to relate to the Howard Government’s decision to join the war in Iraq, were not transferred to the Archives in 2020, as they should have been for review prior to release yesterday. [1] “We eagerly anticipate the release of these records,” said Miles Whiticker, President of Pirate Party […]
WHO Working Group on Amendments to the International Health Regulations
KEI statement to the Working Group on Amendments to the International Health Regulations
December 7, 2023
KEI agrees with others that the IHR regulations should incorporate measures to address equitable access to products.
KEI reminds delegations that in 2019, the WHA adopted the resolution WHA72.8 on “Improving the transparency of markets for medicines, vaccines, and other health products.”
Among the measures that we hope can be reflected in future revisions of the IHR are measures to implement the transparency obligations in WHA72.8, including but not limited to those relating to the transparency of prices and units sold for counter measures, and the transparency and collection of data on R&D subsidies, patent landscapes and the outcomes, costs and subsidies relating to relevant clinical trials.
The delegates may want the secretariat to make a presentation on the obligations in WHA72.8 that are relevant to the IHR.
The post WHO Working Group on Amendments to the International Health Regulations appeared first on Knowledge Ecology International.