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From the Diamond Princess to the MV Hondius: International Law Still Lacks Clear Rules for Public Health Emergencies on Cruise Ships

May 25, 2026

Thomas Mulder

Dr. Natalie Klein

Despite the lessons of COVID-19, the treatment of cruise ships during public health emergencies remains governed by fragmented and incomplete rules under international law. Recent treaty reform efforts failed to resolve the structural gaps exposed both in 2020 and now again in 2026. In April and May 2026, the expedition cruise vessel MV Hondius became the site of a hantavirus outbreak that has grabbed media headlines across the world. The ship departed Ushuaia, Argentina, on 1 April 2026, carrying around 150 passengers and crew representing 23 nationalities. Passengers were primarily from Spain, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States, while most crew members were from the Philippines.

Forced Sterilisation before the Inter-American Court: Between Progress and Silence in Ramos Durand v. Peru

April 1, 2026

Anna Kohte

On 5 March, the Inter-American Court on Human Rights (IACtHR) notified its long-awaited judgment in Celia Edith Ramos Durand v. Peru. The case concerns the forced sterilisation of Celia Edith Ramos Durand and stands for thousands of predominantly Indigenous women who were sterilised under coercive conditions in Peru in the late 1990s. It is only the second…

The Withdrawal of Argentina from WHO: Another from Apology to Utopia Moment

March 19, 2026

Andreas Piperides

On 17 March 2025, the Secretary-General of the United Nations received a letter from the Minister of Foreign Affairs, International Trade and Worship of the Argentine Republic, informing him, in his capacity as depositary of the Constitution of the World Health Organization (WHO), of Argentina’s denunciation of the Constitution of the WHO. In this letter, the Minister…

The Entry into Force of the Amendments to WHO’s International Health Regulations

October 7, 2025

Gian Luca Burci

Introduction The International Health Regulations (IHR) are, for the moment, the sole global binding legal instrument in force for the prevention and control of the international spread of disease. They are the successor of the pre-WHO international sanitary agreements that were taken over by the newly established WHO and replaced by a single regulation originally adopted…

The Pandemic Agreement: A Milestone in Global Health, but Will it Work?

June 12, 2025

Ayelet Berman

Indira Dewi Kantiana

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed significant weaknesses in the global legal framework for pandemics. In response, in 2021, WHO member states launched negotiations to develop a new pandemic agreement aimed at addressing the gaps revealed by the pandemic. After three years of negotiations, on 20 May 2025, the 78th World Health Assembly (WHA) adopted the WHO Pandemic…

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Taking China to the International Court of Justice over COVID-19

April 2, 2020

Peter Tzeng

Scholars have claimed that China’s conduct with respect to COVID-19 (and the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2) violated the International Health Regulations, in particular the obligations of timely notification and information-sharing in Articles 6 and 7 (see, for example, here and here). Had China…

Derogating to Deal with Covid 19: State Practice and Thoughts on the Need for Notification

April 10, 2020

Natasha Holcroft-Emmess

In her blog post on EJIL: Talk! (9 April 2020), Dr Stevie Martin drew attention to an interesting development concerning States' measures to deal with Covid 19 and their impact on human rights. She discusses a decision of the England and Wales Court of Protection in which a judge appeared to find that the UK was…

Do the containment measures taken by Italy in relation to COVID-19 comply with human rights law?

March 16, 2020

Alessandra Spadaro

Italians, like the citizens of other democratic countries in times of peace, have learned to take for granted certain civil liberties and freedoms, such as the freedom of movement and assembly. It suddenly became evident to them that the enjoyment of these rights can be limited as the country has now been put on lockdown by the government,…

A Domestic Court’s Attempt to Derogate from the ECHR on behalf of the United Kingdom: the implications of Covid-19 on judicial decision-making in the United Kingdom

April 9, 2020

Stevie Martin

It is perhaps trite to note that for many countries throughout the world Covid-19 represents an unprecedented (as least in terms of modern peacetime history) public health emergency. It is inevitable that during this time some decisions will be made that are controversial, both ethically and legally. It will take careful reflection in the wake of the pandemic…