In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Symposia

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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31 Mar

[Pedro A. Villarreal is a Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law.] The WHO's Oversight of the IHR's Obligations – Still No Health Police As explained in the previous post, the WHO cannot invoke legal responsibility when states breach the IHR. Reports of non-compliance have been presented at the World Health Assembly – without further action....

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31 Mar

[Pedro A. Villarreal is a Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law.] In what is now an omnipresent claim, the coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic currently rages throughout the globe. The epidemiological situation changes on a daily basis, often in dramatic fashion. Such fast-paced dynamism also encompasses the measures adopted by domestic authorities – for which there is a very...

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30 Mar

[Leslie-Anne Duvic-Paoli is Lecturer in Law and Deputy Director of the Climate Law and Governance Centre at The Dickson Poon School of Law, King’s College London.] What can a global health crisis tell us about international environmental law? To answer this question, this short piece maps the interconnections between the COVID-19 pandemic and international environmental law at three stages of the crisis: its origins, policy responses, and...

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30 Mar

[Frédéric Mégret is a Professor and William Dawson Scholar at the Faculty of Law, McGill University] One of the most characteristic symptoms of globalization was the fairly significant expatriation of large numbers of nationals for life, work and adventure. This was frequently coupled with a discourse emphasizing the fraying of national identification and the relativity of state affiliation. That discourse was deeply schizophrenic and remains so: it...

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