[Priya Pillai is a lawyer and international law consultant.] The past few weeks have seen the COVID-19 virus spread across the globe like wildfire. While for many, normal life has been disrupted, the virus has not slowed down the pace of events for those caught up in conflict or forced to flee their homes for reasons such as climate change or...
[León Castellanos-Jankiewicz is Researcher in International Law at the Asser Institute for International and European Law in The Hague and Academic Coordinator of the Netherlands Network for Human Rights Research.] As nearly half the world goes under lockdown to contain the spread of COVID-19, migrants have been especially helpless in the face of governmental measures restricting the movement of persons. Recent...
[Nina Sun is the Deputy Director and Global Health and Human Rights & Assistant Clinical Professor at the Dornsife School of Public Health, Drexel University and Livio Zilli is a Senior Legal Adviser & UN Representative at the International Commission of Jurists.] Overview of Criminalization related to Violations of Public Health Measures Responses to the new coronavirus have escalated at a rapid rate, with States using a variety...
[Nina Sun is the Deputy Director and Global Health and Human Rights & Assistant Clinical Professor at the Dornsife School of Public Health, Drexel University and Livio Zilli is a Senior Legal Adviser & UN Representative at the International Commission of Jurists.] This piece is split into two parts – the first focuses on criminalization of COVID-19 exposure and transmission, and the second on criminal sanctions...
[Matt Pollard is a Senior Legal Adviser for the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) in Geneva, and Director of the ICJ Centre for the Independence of Judges and Lawyers; Mathilde Laronche is an Associate Legal Adviser for the ICJ, with a specialization in human rights, humanitarian law and international criminal law and Viviana Grande is an intern with the ICJ, a law...
[Matt Pollard is a Senior Legal Adviser for the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) in Geneva, and Director of the ICJ Centre for the Independence of Judges and Lawyers; Mathilde Laronche is an Associate Legal Adviser for the ICJ, with a specialization in human rights, humanitarian law and international criminal law and Viviana Grande is an intern with the ICJ, a law...
[Douglas Guilfoyle is Associate Professor of International and Security Law at UNSW Canberra.] I have been asked to write on taking teaching online during the coronavirus pandemic. Others are much better qualified to speak on the topic (see some great resources here from Joe McIntyre and here from Kate Galloway), but I do have the possible advantage of having taught only in face-to-face formats until last year when...
[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....
[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...
[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...
[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...
[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...