Public Law Studies Quarterly

Invoking Circumstances Precluding Wrongfulness as Regards International Responsibility for Violation of Human-Rights Obligations during the Covid-19 Pandemic

Document Type : Article

Authors

Aghil Mohammadi 1
Faezeh Sadat Sajjadi 2

1 Assistant prof. Department of Public and International Law, School of Law and Political Sciences, Shiraz University, Shiraz,. Iran

2 M.A Student in International Law, Department of Public and International Law, International Campus Unit, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran

https://doi.org/10.22059/jplsq.2021.312059.2598
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the implementation of states' international obligations, especially in terms of international human rights law. The right to health was violated more than any other rights. Although quarantines, social distancing, travel and access-to-information bans were imposed to protect public health, the inefficiency of some states led to the violation of the right to freedom of movement as well as the right to access information. Using a descriptive-analytical method, this paper will examine the implementation of these three rights during the COVID-19 pandemic and will ask which precluding circumstances can be invoked by states to justify violations of their obligations? It seems, given the high threshold for proving force majeure, the pandemic does not meet all the requirements of this factor, such as the impossibility of materially performing obligations. Nonetheless, distress and especially necessity seem worthy of consideration. Given the differences between states in terms of the severity of the pandemic and the capacity to deal with it, these factors cannot be considered as equally applicable to all states.

Keywords

Covid-19
the Coronavirus
global pandemic
human rights obligations
force majeure
distress
necessity
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Public Law Studies Quarterly
Volume 52, Issue 1
Spring 2022
Spring 2022
Pages 351-377

  • Receive Date 18 October 2020
  • Revise Date 20 January 2021
  • Accept Date 24 May 2021

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