Statement: New Zealand's Rejection of the Proposed 2024 Amendments to the WHO International Health Regulations (IHR)

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March 18, 2026

New Zealand Doctors Speaking Out with Science (NZDSOS) welcomes and supports, as a first step, the New Zealand Government’s formal decision to reject the proposed 2024 amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR), as announced by Foreign Minister Winston Peters on 17 March 2026.

Screenshot of a public post by @winstonpeters on X (formerly Twitter), 17 March, 2026.
Used under fair dealing for reporting and commentary.

In his statement, Winston Peters has confirmed that New Zealand has notified the WHO Director-General, via our Permanent Mission in Geneva, of our official rejection under Article 61 of the IHR. This reaffirms the principle that decisions about the health and wellbeing of the people of our country must be made in New Zealand and not Geneva.

NZDSOS has called consistently for a complete exit from the WHO, as the US is doing and others are contemplating. Its behaviour as an over-reaching investment body controlled by autocratic and profit-driven funders has seen it severely damage world health with its pandemic declarations, Wuhan cover-ups (bat and pangolin soup, anyone?) and vaccine marketing.

Nevertheless, at least this current step limits the further erosion of national sovereignty in the proposed IHR changes, which would expand WHO influence over domestic public health systems, including risk communication, border measures, digital health documentation, personal health data sharing, and the establishment of new national authorities aligned with WHO frameworks.

These amendments further centralise power in an unelected international body with significant private funding influences, while limiting New Zealand’s ability to assess and respond to health threats independently, based on our own evidence, priorities, and democratic processes as per the peoples’ wishes.

The Government’s IHR rejection moves towards NZDSOS’s longstanding advocacy for maintaining national oversight of medical and public health decision-making, especially after the hard lessons-learnt from the ‘covid response’.

We acknowledge the efforts of NZDSOS supporters, citizens, advocacy groups, and especially lawyer Kirsten Murfitt and advocate Greg Rzesniowiecki who moved early to alert us to the anti-democratic intentions of the WHO. They have raised awareness through petitions, campaigns, events, and direct engagement, and the resulting public pressure has demonstrably influenced this outcome.

So this decision preserves New Zealand’s position under the existing 2005 IHR framework, which “supports international cooperation” without the expanded and non-optional mechanisms introduced in 2024. It does not yet withdraw from the WHO entirely but reaffirms that advisory recommendations from Geneva must not override our national authority.

Out of the Frying Pan…

NZDSOS is concerned about what happens next, particularly with the WHO’s Pandemic Agreement talks in May 2026. Further, the Gene Technology Bill still lurks malignly in Parliament waiting for NZ First to declare itself. If passed it would yoke us back under external corporate control of our drug treatments and, without doubt eliminate or at a minimum restrict, natural medicines and destroy our natural birthrights.

In addition, the Covid Inquiry has recommended other right-limiting measures be incorporated into future pandemic responses e.g. “Vaccination requirements are a valid intervention that should be kept in the toolbox for future pandemic responses.”

In the light of gross assaults by national and global forces, NZ’s public health policies must reorient to science-based medicine, medical ethics, informed consent, individual rights, and be invested in our citizens’ interests, all of which are founding principles of NZDSOS’s work and what we shall continue to defend.

New Zealand Doctors Speaking Out with Science (NZDSOS)