This timely collection brings together original explorations of the COVID-19 pandemic and its wide-ranging, global effects on human rights. The contributors argue that a human rights perspective is necessary to understand the pervasive consequences of the crisis, while focusing attention on those being left behind and providing a necessary framework for the effort to "build back better." Expert contributors to this volume address interconnections between the COVID-19 crisis and human rights to equality and non-discrimination, including historical responses to pandemics, populism and authoritarianism, and the rights to health, information, water access, and the environment. Highlighting the dangerous potential for derogations from human rights, authors further scrutinise the human rights compliance of new legislation and policies in relation to issues such as privacy, protection of persons with disabilities, freedom of expression and access to medicines. Acknowledging the pandemic as a defining moment for human rights, the volume proposes a post-crisis human rights agenda to engage civil society and government at all levels in concrete measures to roll back increasing inequality. With rich examples, new thinking, and provocative analyses of human rights, COVID-19, pandemics, crises, and inequality, this book will be of key interest to scholars, students and practitioners in all areas of human rights, global governance, public health, as well as others who are ready to embark on an exploration of these complex challenges.

This book presents an international and comparative exploration of how the COVID-19 global pandemic has affected and impacted on issues of human rights, security, and law. Throughout the world, the COVID-19 global pandemic has fundamentally impacted and altered our way of life. As this book sets out, all states have had to contend with similar challenges as well as competing interests and obligations affecting human rights and security. These challenges present very few simple choices but nonetheless carry enormous consequences. Organised into two thematic and distinct yet interrelated parts, first on theoretical and practical challenges for human rights and second on threats to personal, collective, and global security, the book examines how the ability of states to safeguard our fundamental rights and security, broadly defined, has been challenged. Questions about the legality and legal impact of recent responses to COVID-19 will persist for some time. It is often said that global problems require coordinated global solutions, but the various responses to the pandemic by states suggest a notable lack of a consensus amongst the international community. The book will be of interest to academics and researchers working in the areas of human rights law and security law. It will also appeal to constitutional lawyers, given the nature of law-making and the challenge of ensuring adequate scrutiny in emergency situations as well as the impact of COVID-19 upon the legal framework more generally. It will provide a valuable resource for policymakers, practitioners, and public servants.

Governing the Crisis: Law, Human Rights and COVID-19 is a collection of essays by an interdisciplinary group of experts from around the world who look at different human rights issues which have emerged as relevant during the COVID-19 pandemic. The topics cover a range of issues in different countries, for example, tracing apps, digitalization, privacy, priority setting in health care, refugees, cruise ships or risks faced by children. Other chapters investigate the specific government responses in a number of countries. In addition, topics of wider legal interest are investigated, such as the role of constitutional courts, federalism and the concept of the state of emergency.

This timely collection brings together original explorations of the COVID-19 pandemic and its wide-ranging, global effects on human rights. The contributors argue that a human rights perspective is necessary to understand the pervasive consequences of the crisis, while focusing attention on those being left behind and providing a necessary framework for the effort to 'build back better'. Expert contributors to this volume address interconnections between the COVID-19 crisis and human rights to equality and non-discrimination, including historical responses to pandemics, populism and authoritarianism, and the rights to health, information, water and the environment. Highlighting the dangerous potential for derogations from human rights, authors further scrutinize the human rights compliance of new legislation and policies in relation to issues such as privacy, protection of persons with disabilities, freedom of expression, and access to medicines. Acknowledging the pandemic as a defining moment for human rights, the volume proposes a post-crisis human rights agenda to engage civil society and government at all levels in concrete measures to roll back increasing inequality. With rich examples, new thinking, and provocative analyses of human rights, COVID-19, pandemics, crises, and inequality, this book will be of key interest to scholars, students, and practitioners in all areas of human rights, global governance, and public health, as well as others who are ready to embark on an exploration of these complex challenges.

Leading experts examine the threats posed by populism to human rights and the international systems and explore how to confront them.

The COVID-19 pandemic has reshaped life across the world, placing people at risk as our responses to it alter not only health and wellbeing but also governance, economies, social relations, and our interaction with the natural environment. This volume draws globally recognized human rights scholars and practitioners into dialogue over the costs and consequences of the pandemic. With insights and data from fields as diverse as medicine, anthropology, political science, social work, business, and law, these contributors help us make sense of the pandemic’s ongoing effects and its potential impact on future systems and processes. Drawn from two special issues of The Journal of Human Rights—one published within eight months of the first lockdowns, the other published almost two years into the pandemic—this book offers one of the most comprehensive collections of such research available. It will be of interest to researchers and advanced students of Politics, Sociology, Social Work, Economics, Anthropology, Social and Political Geography, and Public Policy.