A proposal cited by the EJIL article, previously rejected during a 10-year revision process for IHR:
> The proposal to grant WHO – and the US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) which is closely associated with WHO due to its technical skills in epidemiological investigations – the right to carry out on-site assessments/send expert teams that the state party in question cannot easily reject, should be carefully analysed also in light of similar US proposals made in 2004 during the then thorough revision process of the IHR (lasting from 1995-2005). At the time, some WHO regions rejected the proposal as they suspected a US’ intention behind them to gain access to biodefence research facilities around the world, thus fearing espionage. This appeared against the background of the Iraq war which started in 2003 under the pretext of the existence of Iraqi bioweapons that UN investigators had been unable to find.
> The proposal to grant WHO – and the US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) which is closely associated with WHO due to its technical skills in epidemiological investigations – the right to carry out on-site assessments/send expert teams that the state party in question cannot easily reject, should be carefully analysed also in light of similar US proposals made in 2004 during the then thorough revision process of the IHR (lasting from 1995-2005). At the time, some WHO regions rejected the proposal as they suspected a US’ intention behind them to gain access to biodefence research facilities around the world, thus fearing espionage. This appeared against the background of the Iraq war which started in 2003 under the pretext of the existence of Iraqi bioweapons that UN investigators had been unable to find.