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The Role of the Right to Health in a “Hidden” Pandemic: Antimicrobial Resistance

December 8, 2021

Claire Lougarre

A.M. Viens

Last week, UK health officials declared that a "hidden pandemic" of antibiotic-resistant infections could soon threaten human health and lives. More cold symptoms are expected this winter, due to an increase in social mixing, but the UK Health Security Agency warn against premature and inadequate use of antibiotics. However, this menace is not new and not specific to the UK. In fact, the World Health Organization recognises antimicrobial resistance (including antibiotic resistance) as one of the top 10 global health threats facing humanity and organises a World Antimicrobial Awareness Week in November every year. Antibiotic resistance, like its name suggests, is the phenomenon describing the change that bacteria develop in order to resist the efficacy of antibiotics designed to kill them. As noted by the WHO, this phenomenon and the decreased effectiveness of antibiotics that it entails, jeopardise our ability to treat common infectious diseases, such as pneumonia, tuberculosis, blood poisoning, gonorrhoea, and foodborne diseases. This can lead, in turn, to prolonged hospital stays and increased mortality. This phenomenon is particularly…

Punishing Compliance with International Law: The Omicron Variant and the International Health Regulations (2005)

December 2, 2021

Pedro A. Villarreal

On 24 November 2021, the government of South Africa reported the presence of a new variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus to the World Health Organization. The Technical Advisory Group on SARS-CoV-2 Evolution (TAG-VE), an independent group of experts, designated the new variant, denominated “Omicron”, to be a “Variant of Concern” (VOC). The TAG-VE's preliminary analysis of the…

International Economic Law in a Time of Global Perils: Omicron and other COVID variants, Climate Change, Human Rights, and Development

November 29, 2021

Diane Desierto

The World Trade Organization decided to indefinitely postpone its 12th Ministerial Conference, originally scheduled for this week (30 November to 3 December), due to travel constraints for many delegations coming from countries that had already imposed travel bans and other restrictions due to the new Omicron variant. The 12th Ministerial was slated to take up a…

Why the rush? A call for critical reflection on the legal and human rights implications of a potential new international treaty on pandemics

July 29, 2021

Dr Silvia Behrendt

Dr Amrei Müller

Background: the push for an international treaty on pandemics At the close of the 74th World Health Assembly (WHA) on the 1st of June 2021, the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) Director-General remarked: ‘One day – hopefully soon – the pandemic will be behind us, but we will still face…

From Eunomia To Eusophia: Planning a better future for the human world

July 15, 2021

Philip Allott

The COVID-19 pandemic has inspired much wide and deep thought about the human condition. A global phenomenon, like climate change, it has challenged deep-structural aspects of the organisation of the world. It has challenged nationalism in requiring a cross-national response, at the level of policy and in complex practical measures. It has challenged established relationships between…

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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,…

Is the National Security Exception in the TRIPS Agreement a Realistic Option in Confronting COVID-19?

August 6, 2020

Emmanuel Kolawole Oke

It has been suggested by some scholars and commentators that states can invoke the national security exception in the TRIPS Agreement as part of measures to tackle COVID-19 (see here, here, and here). This would entail invoking the security exception to suspend the enforcement of patent rights in order to facilitate either the importation or…