Title: COVID-19 as a ‘Threat to the Life of the Nation’ in International Human Rights Law: Diverging State Practice
Abstract: The emergency measures introduced by states in reaction to the outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) in spring and summer 2020 are an unfriendly reminder of the deficiencies of the rules on states of emergency and derogation under international human rights instruments. Heterogenous state practice on declaring emergencies and invoking the derogation under human rights treaties led to widely different responses to the same kind of threat. Faced with very similar situations, some states declared a state of emergency while others did not, some derogated from human rights treaties while others did not, and some neither declared a state of emergency nor derogated from human rights obligations. This article compares selected state practice in declaring a state of emergency in response to the pandemic, in derogating from human rights treaties, and in managing the state of emergency in the early phase of the pandemic in spring and summer 2020. The analysis focuses on the distinction between formal and informal emergencies and investigates the difference between limitation and derogation based on a comparison of measures introduced by states during the pandemic.
Publication Year: 2021
Publication Date: 2021-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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