Covid19 and State Responsibility in International Law
Introduction
Countries have huge roles to play in dealing with epidemics and also global pandemics. The spread of the severe respiratory Covid19 infection is one evidence that the increasing interconnectedness of the countries in the world would probably make it hard for us to contain the spread of such fatal viruses and perhaps any other crises that may arise in the future. The disease is spreading faster than wildfire and is unaware of race, borders, passports, or even ethnicity. Different countries, therefore, need to be allocated different responsibilities which they have to strictly follow to flatten the curve of the disease infections. The adverse effects being caused by the disease means that there need to be laws measures put up to dictate the behavior of every state to eradicate the exponential growth of the disease.
The World Health Organization has some international laws aimed at protecting human rights at the social, regional, and national levels. These rights are referred to as the International Law of Human Rights (IHR). The laws are usually made up of treaties that are signed by different countries as a binding agreement to protect the rights of the citizens in its member countries at all times. To, therefore, promote the safety of its nation and other nations, countries have to meticulously follow these laws. Another body is known as the Law of Responsibility also works to distribute different tasks to different countries to critically deal with the growth of the pandemic. WHO also works to assist countries which might have weaker health systems that may otherwise be overwhelmed by the severity of the pandemic.
State Responsibilities during the Coronavirus Pandemic
International law requires countries to report any suspicious situations that may have occurred in their states, which may cause potential risks to other states. This derivative is highlighted in Article 7 of the WHO Constitution and Regulations. The information is supposed to be relayed regardless of the origin or the source of the health risk. Article six of the same constitution continues further to state that the information about the disease must be given within twenty-four hours to the Secretary-General of the United Nations. If the investigations about the intensity of the situation fail to be identified by the organization, then the case is taken to the Court of Justice.
Depending on the severity of the problem, the high-risk area is declared a state of emergency by WHO after the information is relayed to the Secretary-General. Other Human Rights Treaties such as article four in the International Covenant for Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) that was signed in 1969, state the events that legally lead to the declaration as a state of national emergency. The treaty is recognized around 24 countries in the western hemisphere today. Other articles that also address the characteristics of a state of emergency are; article seven of Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), article fifteen of European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) that works for 47 states in the European Charter, and article four of Arab Convention on Human Rights (ArabCHR) which declares how issues concerning the state of emergency should then be handled by the countries.
In a state of emergency, some rights and freedoms in international law can be suspended, except for the ones mentioned in the ICCPR, IACHR, ECHR, and ArabCHR. Some of the non-derogable rights stipulated in these articles include the right to life, the protection from being deprived of arbitrary rights, the freedom of religion, and the liberty from slavery and inhuman treatment. The ArabCHR has the highest number of non-derogable rights with additional ones such as protection from forced labor, child rights, and liberty to name and nationality, among many others. Any other rights apart from these may be derogated depending on the demand of the situation.
The rights derogated should however be proportional to the emergency and should only be utilized when necessary to protect the nation’s citizens. Some states have been found out to extend the state of emergency even after the situation has been dealt with, to manipulate these lessened liberties for the government’s gain. When a state lifts some of the rights indicated in international law, it should inform the body in charge of the time the decision has been made. It should also give events that led to the suspension of the rights, and precisely state the rights that are being derogated. Laws such as ACHR require the states to give the dates as to which the state of emergency will be lifted because they are only supposed to be temporary situations. Others such as ECHR and ICCPR do not require an expiry date for the state of emergency. They however expect that the country reports when the normal rights of its citizens become fully restored once more. These rights are integrated into the national legislature of every country that agrees to abide by these covenants.
The legitimacy of the state of emergency and the restrictions that a country puts in place can be determined through international proceedings and constant monitoring. Any violations in the legalization of the emergency are brought forward to the respective courts for a hearing. The ICCPR, for instance, has a protocol signed by close to 120 states that gives the states the right to address the Human Rights Committee whenever they feel that there is a violation of the rights derogated by the state of emergency. These protocols can be accessed by individuals provided they provide solid shreds of evidence, except for the ACHR which only hears cases from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Monitoring is however the most common method that the international bodies take to oversee the enforcement of human rights. The ICCPR uses the Human Rights Committee to monitor the events, while the EHCR uses the Commissioner for Human Rights.
Relating to the Coronavirus pandemic, China is being blamed by countries such as the USA, Germany, and England for the spread of the virus because they breached the policy articulated in article seven of the WHO Constitution. The press reported that the country took several days to report about the rapidly infectious disease when it was first traced to Wuhan. These countries also against China claim that the country did not emphasize the severity of the disease to alert other countries to carefully prepare for the entry of the disease in their countries. Countries like Germany have also sent to China an invoice for all the damages caused by the virus, claiming that they should make full reparations of all the injuries caused, as it is stated in the Law of Responsibility. All in all, and most importantly, the state with the origin of the pandemic is obliged to give an immediate report to the relevant bodies to contain the spread of the disease.
In line with the prompt report to WHO, the International Health Regulations (IHR) is required to publicize the measures to be taken to control the infection from being a pandemic. A Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC), may be declared by the IHR Emergency Committee which was formed in 2005 by word wide experts after the outbreak of SARS in 2002. The declaration, therefore, means that the matter is of global concern and therefore countries should take every measure available to prevent the contraction of the disease to its nation. Covid19 was declared a global pandemic in March 2020 after the virus claimed thousands of lives in just China and Italy, due to its easy and fast transmission from person to person.
Secondly, international law requires that all states take the necessary measures to protect its citizens once a publicization of the pandemic or a PHEIC is declared. According to the Law of Responsibilities, measures to be taken by every country, for example border restriction and quarantining is necessary to prevent putting other countries at risk. Each country therefore responsibly act to prevent the spread of the disease across its borders. China is also blamed for not closing down its borders to other countries soon enough to prevent the spread of the disease. The same law of responsibilities also states that any country that violated these locations will be held accountable for the damages caused in other countries. The grounds for determining the innocence of a country are independent of the perpetrator’s negligence or awareness of the direness of the situation at hand. A mental state is also not a determinant factor for the misconduct. These factors however play a significant role in dictating the degree of punishment received. The country must mainly focus on protecting its citizens’ health at the dispense of any other things, the reasons why many countries, nearly a third of the globe is under a lockdown even if this means a great recession in the global economy. The ban on travel and working has left many people jobless and without necessities such as food. However, the government is willing to exhaust its resources and also seek aid from other countries to ensure the safety of its citizens.
Thirdly, international law requires countries to stabilize their economies even during these trying times. As mentioned earlier, the rate of unemployment has risen dramatically over the past few months after increased infections in the country. The crisis has also seen the depreciation of some assets which are consequently losing its investors. However, it is the sole responsibility for countries to look for ways to cope with the economic crisis. To also reduce the effect on businesses, some countries are opting for force majeure which is the use of forceful measures, to keep the overseas buyers from forming agreements which overseas buyers who may bring in the disease or spread the infection to their countries. Some states are also compensating the hotels and businesses that have been closed down to control the spread of the virus. Some other economic measures being taken by some countries are seeking entrepreneurship in the online world that has become the only means of communication currently. There are for example many web and app developers looking for ways to create apps that can track the spread of infections which helps provide significant statistics and analytics for nations. Some companies are also offering their local companies some aid packages to save them from going bankrupt. Though the pandemic is a global issue, the measures to reverse the negative in countries’ economies will only be up to the effort they put in and the strategies they lay put to revive their lost businesses.
Another responsibility states having during the pandemic is protecting foreign investments in their countries. This is dictated in the bilateral and multilateral treaties of investment. This treaty mostly addresses foreign investors rather than domestic investors, because they are the ones at most risk. The self-isolation measures are also crouching into the public international law and most especially the foreign investment law. Many foreign investment projects are being greatly delayed at the expense of the investors. The treaty, consequently, serves to mitigate the losses that the investors could have otherwise experienced from the depreciating of assets during the pandemic. One of the ways that countries shield the investors is by offering them due process as stated in the treaty standard of fair and equitable treatment. The foreign investors are mostly at risk of major losses and therefore treaty of full protection and security shields them from increased vigilance from these nations, as a result of increased looting during this period where people are struggling to feed themselves and their families.
In the same point on protecting its foreign investors, countries should also look to utilize foreign investments without expropriation. A country, for instance, may decide to revert hotels or private schools as isolation centers or treatment zones to cope up with the increasing number of covid19 patients, and return offers the investors compensation for the usage of their facilities. While this may be seen as a necessary measure considering the intensity of the situation, the government should see to it that they do not indirectly misappropriate the assets of the investor or completely get in the way of their expectations to gain the value from their assets.
Conclusion
It is therefore clear that the world needs to work interdependently for the common good of everyone during the pandemic, precisely the main objective of international law. Every country needs its part in the prevention and containing the virus before the vaccine is finally discovered. These responsibilities include, reporting any suspicious incidences or new information about the virus, ensuring the protection of its citizens, finding measures to stabilize their economies for the comfortability of its citizens, and protecting the foreign investors that may just be the most affected during the pandemic.
A state found to breach these requirements is usually liable to some consequences, as dictated by the Law of Responsibility. If adequate pieces of evidence prove the state to be guilty of breaching a primary obligation issued regardless of the mental state or the intentions that led to the misconduct.