This book provides detailed analysis of the applicability of the provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights to issues raised by the COVID-19 pandemic. It encompasses in-depth discussion of the emerging jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights relating to issues arising from the pandemic. To date, a substantial number of complaints concerning such issues have been made to the Court. Human rights claims in the context of the pandemic fall into two broad categories: those based on arguments that states did not put in place sufficient measures to protect individuals from the virus and those entailing arguments that the measures put in place themselves involved breaches of rights. The essential question with which the European Court of Human Rights must grapple is how to adjudicate on the correct balance which should have been struck. The book argues that the Court should be cautious of finding breaches of the European Convention on Human Rights in cases involving public restrictions which were applied for the purpose of protecting life and health in response to a global pandemic. If the concept of a human rights violation is defined too broadly, it dilutes the seriousness of such a breach. In particular, it is argued that to preserve the legitimacy of human rights law, the Court must be cautious of applying an overly narrow margin of appreciation in such cases. The work will be of interest to academics, researchers and policymakers working in the area of human rights.

This book explores the resilience of constitutional government in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, connecting and comparing perspectives from ten countries in sub-Saharan Africa to global trends. In emergency situations, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, a state has the right and duty under both international law and domestic constitutional law to take appropriate steps to protect the health and security of its population. Emergency regimes may allow for the suspension or limitation of normal constitutional government and even human rights. Those measures are not a license for authoritarian rule, but they must conform to legal standards of necessity, reasonableness, and proportionality that limit state action in ways appropriate to the maintenance of the rule of law in the context of a public health emergency. Bringing together established and emerging African scholars from ten countries, this book looks at the impact government emergency responses to the pandemic have on the functions of the executive, the legislature, and the judiciary, as well as the protection of human rights. It also considers whether and to what extent government emergency responses were consistent with international human rights law, in particular with the standards of legality, necessity, proportionality, and non-discrimination in the Siracusa Principles.

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.

Explores the key principles underpinning the decisions made by the European Court of Human Rights, and provides a guide to the pivotal cases in each area.

An indispensable guide for university students, government officials and legal practitioners alike. The European Convention on Human Rights – Principles and law is the essential handbook for university students, government officials, lawyers and human rights advocates seeking a comprehensive and concise account of the case law generated under the European Convention on Human Rights. Written by experts on the Convention, it: • cites nearly 1 500 cases, providing links to each case in the HUDOC database; • identifies key challenges and current legal developments; • provides suggestions for further reading on contentious issues; • is a companion text to Council of Europe’s book The individual application under the European Convention on Human Rights – Procedural guide by Linos-Alexandre Sicilianos and Maria-Andriani Kostopoulou.

How have the arrangements in European countries regarding the functioning of justice changed in the period of the COVID-19 pandemic? Will the solutions implemented in various countries in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic last and find their place in the legal systems of these countries for a longer period of time? The contributors analyse this in four thematic blocks: The first refers to the impact of COVID-19 on the administration and technical functioning of the judiciary, including international courts. The second part focuses on the impact of COVID-19 on the model of civil procedure, including the effects on general and structural principles such as the principle of openness, writing and oral proceedings, the principle of consistency of panels of judges as well as digitalization. The third refers to the impact of COVID-19 on criminal proceedings. And the last one deals with the impact of COVID-19 on the administrative proceedings.

This book brings together leading authorities from the fields of international human rights law, criminology, legal medicine, and political science with international human rights judges and UN experts to analyze the current situation of detainees in Europe, the Americas and Africa. This comprehensive volume offers a platform for reflecting on the complexity of the prison problem from a multidisciplinary perspective. The authors address detention-related issues with the aim of generating new ideas that contribute to both academic discussion and critical analysis. Academic dialogue across the globe provides insights into various national and international carceral systems and how they deal with human rights behind bars. At the same time, the critical comparison helps to identify basic needs and practices that can work in multiple settings. The contributors are respected experts and leading scholars in their fields, and each has pursued prison and human rights research over the last decades. However, this is the first time that they have come together in a multidisciplinary academic project. This book aims to stimulate diverse actors to imagine alternative ways of engaging with persons deprived of their liberty, in academia and in practice.

Human Rights and Disasters provides a comprehensive analysis of the positive obligations of States under human rights law and their potential to improve protection against disasters. Silvia Venier examines the practice of international and regional human rights supervising authorities to identify emerging positive obligations and recommendations and explores how such duties interact with other applicable norms of international law in different disaster settings.

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. Prof. Dr. Stefan Kirchner, MJI, is Research Professor of Arctic Law and the head of the Arctic Governance Research Group at the Arctic Centre of the University of Lapland in Rovaniemi, Finland.

This book explores the effect of the pandemic on human rights; civil and political rights (CPR); economic, social, and cultural rights (ESCR); and freedoms around the world. The COVID-19 pandemic radically changed many aspects of the lives of individuals and entire societies. This crisis and the unprecedented experience required extraordinary solutions, regulations, and rapid responses from decision-makers to limit the spread of the disease and protect societies. To this end, during this period, many countries chose to impose states of emergency, resulting in the granting of extraordinary powers to the executive. This has sometimes been a very convenient pretext for introducing various types of restrictions, oppressive surveillance, and other legal arrangements that can be qualified as human rights violations. The authors make a scholarly summary of this period, identifying possible rights violations — but above all — recommendations for the future. This crisis has shown how important it is to have universal, equitable health and social protection systems that cover all community members equally and without discrimination, and the authors remodel the concept of "human rights" and "human needs". The book covers varied examples from lockdowns to vaccination to information control, across Spain, Poland, South Africa and Uganda, the Czech Republic, Belarus and Ukraine, and Russia. This book will appeal to higher-level students and scholars of law, political science, and international relations and will also be helpful for public policymakers at national and international levels.