Monday 14th, MAY 2007 WHA

FIRST PLENARY MEETING (Morning) = > Aurélie

Introduction of the new President of the 60th World Health Assembly, Ms Jane Halton (Australia)

Item 1
Opening of the session
Professor Paulo Ivo Garrido (Mozambique) declared the 60th WHA open.

Item 1.1
Appointment of the Committee on credentials
12 Member States: Barbados, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Guatemala, Kyrgyzstan, Lithuania, Monaco, Mongolia, Sierra Leone, Timor-Leste, United Arab Emirates, Viet Nam.

Item 1.2
Election of the Committee on Nominations
Afghanistan, Argentina, Burkina Faso, Canada, China, Colombia, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, France, Ghana, Indonesia, Italy, New Zealand, Norway, Palau, Panama, Qatar, Russian Federation, Sri Lanka, Suriname, Macedonia, Ukraine.

Item 1.3. Reports of the Committee nominations
Ms Jane Halton (Australia) was elected President of the 60th WHA by acclamation.

Dr Tedros Adhanom (Ethiopia), Dr C. Chan (Ecuador), Dr Nada A.Haffadh (Bahrain), Dr James Kiely (Ireland) and Mr Kye Chung Yong (Korea) were elected Vice-President of the 60th WHA by acclamation.

Committee A: Dr Robinson R. Jean Louis (Madagascar) was elected by acclamation.
Committee B: Mr Thomas Zeltner (Switzerland) was elected chairman by acclamation.

17 countries were elected members of the General Committee: Botswana, China, Cuba, France, Germany, Guinea-Bissau, Jamaica, Latvia, Mauritania, Morocco, Namibia, Paraguay, Russian Federation, Samoa, Syrian Arab Republic, Thailand, USA.






PLENARY ASSEMBLY (Afternoon)


Item 1.4
Adoption of the Agenda and Allocation of Items to the main committees

The plenary assembly has voted on whether point 5 of the agenda ("5. Admission of new Members or Associate Members if any") should be cancelled or not. The issue concerned the admission of Taiwan as a member of the World Health Organization.
The state of Belize asked for a roll-call of all the member states so that their position would be publicly known. The results of that vote (in favour or against the suppression of point 5) are the following ones:

 183 states voted "yes" to the suppression of point 5 to the agenda
 17 states voted "no"
 2 states abstained
 15 were absent during the vote

Fallowing the vote, the president of the 60th General Assembly, Ms Jane Halton, gave the floor to the different delegations that wished to explain their vote to the whole assembly.

Among the arguments raised by states which were in favour of maintaining point 5 of the Agenda, the Distinguished Delegate of Gambia declared that his country was a close friend to Taiwan and that due to the fact that health was universal, Taiwan might have the right to take care of its own health. H.E. added that his country would continue to support Taiwan in its struggle until victory.

On behalf of the member states of the European Union, the Distinguished Delegate of Germany explained that E.U. countries voted the suppression of point 5 because the issue of Taiwan and its integration to the WHO has already been dealt with at the 59th WHA. He also underlined that granting Taiwan a member status In the Who would be against the WHO Constitution as only states can have a status of member. As the European Union, Korea, Zimbabwe, Barbados, Burundi and many other states highlighted that there is a unique China. Other countries added that such an issue was highly political and it was an indirect way to introduce politics in an inappropriate place and at an inopportune moment. Such a viewpoint was shared by Nepal, Japan, Uzbekistan, Burundi…

Finally point 5 and point 15.4 of the Agenda were cancelled and the amended Agenda was adopted.