Restricting human rights in a state of emergency
Researcher Stéphanie Lagoutte tackles the dilemma of restriction and derogation in her presentation on mitigation measures and human rights in the state of emergency.
In the presentation, Stéphanie distinguishes restrictions in normal times from restrictions in time of emergency, like that of COVID-19.
It is noted that even emergency situations call for compliance to rule of law. Frameworks which we rely on can include the constitution, national emergency law, or sanitary emergency law.
Stéphanie also discusses the question of executive orders and the importance of checks and balances.
Fact sheets:
Many measures adopted by states during the COVID-19 crisis may be justified on the ground of the usual provisions of international human rights law relating to the protection of health. Yet even in an emergency situation, the rule of law must prevail. For more details, you may wish to review the two fact sheets, below:
Additional reading:
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Policy paper DIHR: COVID-19 and human rights law, March 2020 (https://menneskeret.dk/sites/menneskeret.dk/files/media/dokumenter...)
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Article from Orient XXI: Virus, Dance of Death and Social Control, by Christian Jouret, 19 May 2020 (https://orientxxi.info/virus-dance-of-death-and-social-control,3884)
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Article from OpenGlobalRights: Will COVID-19 increase religious hostilities and discrimination? June 2020 (https://www.openglobalrights.org/will-covid-19-increase-religious-hostilities-and-discrimination/)
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Council of Europe: Respecting democracy, rule of law and human rights in the framework of the COVID-19 Crisis. A toolkit for member states, 7 April 2020 (https://rm.coe.int/sg-inf-2020-11-respecting-democracy-rule-of-law-and-human-rights-in-th/16809e1f40)
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COVID-19 Civic freedom tracker (https://www.icnl.org/covid19tracker/)
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COVID-19 Mapping cases of excessive use of force by law enforcement https://omegaresearchfoundation.org/covid.php