In association with the International Commission of Jurists

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02 Apr

[Dr. Mona Pinchis-Paulsen is a Teaching Fellow in the LLM Program in International Economic Law, Business and Policy at Stanford Law School.] Over a matter of days, governments became reflexively nationalist in responding to COVID-19. Several emergency powers and orders were ignited. Global Trade Alert found that, as of 21 March 2020, 54 governments had introduced export restrictions on medical supplies....

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02 Apr

[Ntina Tzouvala is an ARC Laureate Postdoctoral Fellow at Melbourne Law School.] Francisco de Vitoria was obsessed with food. I do not refer here to his private habits, but rather to the importance he assigned to the consumption of raw food and cannibalism (real or imagined) as markers of savagery. Indeed, imaginaries of cannibalism were central to the imperialist imaginary, including that of international lawyers, and were often mobilised...

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02 Apr

[Tara Van Ho is a Lecturer at the School of Law at the University of Essex.] In the first part, I set out how ‘business as usual’ with regard to shareholder primacy has exacerbated human rights concerns associated with COVID-19. In this post, I want to set out a path forward for a more sustainable and appropriate approach. Before I do, I want to briefly address the...

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02 Apr

[Tara Van Ho is a Lecturer at the School of Law at the University of Essex.] COVID-19 has upended modern capitalist life. States have instituted a variety of measures that have curbed business activity in an effort to limit the pandemic’s spread. Swedish industrialist Jacob Wallenberg has argued for returning to the status quo quickly. Explicitly, the presidents of the United States and Brazil, the Prime Minister of Sweden, and seemingly the...

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01 Apr

 [Toby Cadman is the Co-Founder and Head of Chambers of Guernica 37 International Justice Chambers in London.] As a general concept, it is an established principle of international human rights law that in addition to the negative obligation not to commit acts in breach of rights contained in the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, the overriding principle in Article 1 extends a positive obligation...

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01 Apr

[Barrie Sander is a Fellow at Fundação Getúlio Vargas, Brazil and Luca Belli is Professor of Internet Governance and Regulation at FGV Law School, where he heads the CyberBRICS project; he is also Director of CPDP LatAm and an Associated Researcher at Centre de Droit Public Comparé at Paris 2 University.] Ushering in a world of social distancing and self-isolation, the global spread of COVID-19 has intensified societal...

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01 Apr

[Tim Fish Hodgson is a Legal Adviser on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, International Commission of Jurists. Ian Seiderman is the Legal and Policy Director of the International Commission of Jurists.] The first part of this post looked at the general obligations of the right to health in the context of the COVID-19 crisis, including in relation to the private sector. We now turn to the...

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01 Apr

[Tim Fish Hodgson is a Legal Adviser on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, International Commission of Jurists. Ian Seiderman is the Legal and Policy Director of the International Commission of Jurists.] In evaluating the existing or potential human rights consequences of the varied State responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, a great deal of attention has been focused on the question of limitations or emergency-based derogations to human rights protections...

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01 Apr

[Elizabeth Stubbins Bates is a Junior Research Fellow in Law at Merton College, University of Oxford.] In the shock and fear of the COVID-19 pandemic, colleagues have begun to reflect on international human rights law’s continued importance: with analyses of due diligence, the right to life and right to health; derogations under the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) (also see page...

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31 Mar

[Martins Paparinskis is Reader in Public International Law at University College London, Faculty of Laws.] ‘Is COVID-19 also disrupting the foundations of international law?’ The cliché on the topic safely out of the way in the first sentence, let me say that I will not add to discussion of how international law shapes possible responses in technical and institutional terms, nor will I say anything about...

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31 Mar

[Dina Lupin Townsend is a Research Consultant and Visiting Researcher at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. She specialises in environmental law and human rights.]  Information and advice on COVID-19 has been changing at an alarming rate, but one message has remained consistent for weeks: wash your hands. The World Health Organization (WHO) has stated that ‘frequent and proper hand hygiene is one of the most important measures...

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31 Mar

[Dr. Mark Eccleston-Turner is a Lecturer of Law at the University of Keele, and the 2020 Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Georgetown.] Introduction On 30 January 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus declared COVID-19 a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). The declaration of a PHEIC serves as a clarion call to the international community to provide political, financial, and technical support to a...

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