VIOLATIONS OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

The right to the best quality of healthcare is guaranteed by international human rights law, and as a result, States are compelled to take the necessary governmental actions to realize that objective. Considering the nature of such a pandemic, States must specifically pledge to be protectors of public health and offer healthcare to everyone. At the same time, the international human rights law also provides for the governments feasibility to put some restrictions on the application of human rights when it is essential to protect the rights of bigger groups of citizens. The COVID-19 global pandemic has created unusual circumstances that have resulted in greater limits on human rights than would often be the case, both in terms of their magnitude and their duration. A public health emergency, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, is a humanitarian emergency since everyone has the right to health. Yet, perceptions about the impact of COVID-19 epidemic on human rights seem to have differed greatly among rights, time, and countries. This paper tries to give a look into how the pandemic has affected various human rights.

Scientific Papers of Silesian University of Technology. Organization and Management Series, 2021

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to analyze some of the most significant ethical and human rights impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis aims to demonstrate the failures of many political decision that lead to restriction and limitation of human rights. Design/methodology/approach: We analyze various documents, reports and news articles that provide essential information about the different governmental restrictions that may lead to controversial human rights issues. We also use some philosophical texts to support our theoretical basis for the defence of human rights. Overall, we aim to find some of the groups that were vulnerable during COVID-19 pandemic and describe some of the human rights concerns and ethical issues. Social implications: We hope that our article will impact political regulations and restrictions that can have severe human rights implications. We also hope to inspire citizens, scientists and politicians to uphold and protect human rights and dignit...

Review of European and Comparative Law, 2021

In this article, we attempt to present the legal grounds for introducing restrictions on human rights during the COVID-19 pandemic from a comparative legal perspective. We refer to the findings of a research project completed in 2020, trying to synthesize them and confront them with existing theoretical models. We strive to capture general patterns in the legal basis for states’ actions in response to global threats such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Comparative legal research contributes to the creation of universal solutions, which, taking into account the specificity of the system, can then be applied in local conditions.

2021

The COVID-19 pandemic provided ideal conditions for the violation of human rights. In efforts to curb the spread of the virus, numerous states violated their international law obligations outlined in treaties and customary international law. This article aims to analyse state responses to the global pandemic and will consider how their lawfulness should be measured. To this end, the framework of due diligence is utilised as a system to regulate and assess the legality of state actions amidst times of emergency. Furthermore, this article argues that the principle of due diligence must be developed to sufficiently regulate instances of derogation that extend beyond restrictions. This development must also be informed by an intersectional approach that prioritises the protection of vulnerable groups, owing to the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on these communities. Stemming from this analysis, the article will conclude by considering the landscape of state actions in handling COVI...

Journal of International Humanitarian Legal Studies

States have duties under Article 12(2)(c) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to prevent, control and treat covid-19. Implementation of these three obligations is analysed, taking account of countervailing human rights considerations. Regarding prevention, lockdowns designed to stop the spread of the virus are examined. Control measures are then discussed, namely transparency measures, quarantine, testing and tracing. The human rights compatibility of treatment measures, namely the provision of adequate medical and hospital care (or the failure to do so), are then examined. Finally, derogations from human rights treaties in times of pubic emergency are discussed.

Voices from the SYLFF Community, 2021

The COVID-19 pandemic is challenging the international community’s commitment to human rights protection. In this short contribution, Ana Zdravkovic, a PhD candidate at the University of Belgrade, looks at the “derogation clauses” included in most international human rights treaties, which allow for the temporary suspension of certain rights in emergency situations, and notices a disturbing trend in how states are approaching them.

The Lancet

When the history of the COVID-19 pandemic is written, the failure of many states to live up to their human rights obligations should be a central narrative. The pandemic began with Wuhan officials in China suppressing information, silencing whistleblowers, and violating the freedom of expression and the right to health. Since then, COVID-19's effects have been profoundly unequal, both nationally and globally. These inequalities have emphatically highlighted how far countries are from meeting the supreme human rights command of non-discrimination, from achieving the highest attainable standard of health that is equally the right of all people everywhere, and from taking the human rights obligation of international assistance and cooperation seriously. We propose embedding human rights and equity within a transformed global health architecture as the necessary response to COVID-19's rights violations. This means vastly more funding from high-income countries to support low-income and middle-income countries in rights-based recoveries, plus implementing measures to ensure equitable distribution of COVID-19 medical technologies. We also emphasise structured approaches to funding and equitable distribution going forward, which includes embedding human rights into a new pandemic treaty. Above all, new legal instruments and mechanisms, from a right to health treaty to a fund for civil society right to health advocacy, are required so that the narratives of future health emergencies-and people's daily lives-are ones of equality and human rights.

Pravni zapisi, 2020

The year of 2020 will certainly be in all future books on the history of epidemiology and the Covid-19 pandemic will be discussed in them as perhaps the most significant public health challenge since the Spanish flu. But I also hope that it will feature as a new chapter in the books on health and human rights. The suffering of millions of people around the world, the deaths and medical challenges have already presented many lessons to learn from. One of the lessons should be to recognize the right to health as a full-fledged human and constitutional right that deserves a much closer attention whenever annual budgets are drafted and it should be considered as a fundamental human right without which no other rights can be exercised in epidemiological crises and even after that.

2021

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a challenge to human rights and human rights law globally. The epidemic itself as well as the measures enacted to contain it continuously affect the enjoyment of internationally protected human rights. Furthermore, populism traditionally thrives on crises which can provide legitimacy to extraordinary politics that consistently have proved to be the anti-thesis to human rights compliance and to checks on the power of the executive. In the case of COVID-19 however, democratic states have been dealing with a genuine crisis and extraordinary policies have been warranted. Despite claims to the contrary, human rights do not present a barrier to decisive action to contain the virus. In fact, this working paper argues the opposite. The paper presents three perspectives on how human rights can act as a guide in the fight against the pandemic. Chapter 1 contrasts human rights-based approaches to fighting the spread with populist or authoritarian approaches. It explains what human rights-based approaches to genuine crises look like, as opposed to approaches with little regard for fundamental rights, providing a reliable way to spot the difference. Chapter 2 engages in a methodological discussion on how reliably to measure human rights compliance and promotion in connection with a global pandemic and conducts a survey of existing guides and trackers. Finally, Chapter 3 presents a method for real-life application of the results of the analysis in Chapter 1 and the discussion in Chapter 2 in the form of an assessment model for human rights protection and promotion during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.

Journal of Law and the Biosciences, 2020

Under international human rights law, States can limit the exercise of most human rights if it is necessary to protect the rights of others or collective interests. The exceptional circumstances brought by the COVID-19 global pandemic lead to more extensive, on both their scope and their duration, restrictions of human rights than in usual times. This article introduces the States’ specific right to derogate to human rights in circumstances of public emergency and the conditions of a legitimate derogation in the context of COVID-19. It argues that States must ensure that the general measures they adopt to face the crisis do not disproportionally harm vulnerable people.