Exceptionality: A Typology of COVID-19 Emergency Powers
The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has stretched State capacity across the globe. It has simultaneously revealed both the robustness and fragility of public health, education, transport, economic, welfare, and security systems. In one way, the pandemic is a classic emergency challenge for States. The pandemic is a sudden and unexpected event threatening many lives, and the multifaceted physical manifestations of COVID-19 cripple the capacity of health systems to function. In parallel, it also presents the spectre of a new normal as exceptionality in the experience of a health crisis may not go away and that pathogen-led crises are with us for the long haul. There is no shortage of exceptional emergency responses to the pandemic ranging from mandatory lockdowns, limits on freedom of expression, vaccine mandates and mandatory labour production. Assessment of the scale, impact, and long-term significances of such emergency practice is nascent, and this article offers a preliminary assessment of the legal forms and consequences of a resort to exceptional powers and widespread emergency practice across the globe. Specifically, I provide a typology of emergency powers practice emerging through pandemic responses and explore the new forms and variations of emergency powers which appear to be thriving in the new normal of the pandemic. I address the human rights and rule of law consequences of new exceptionalities and offer preliminary views on how to undo the hardwiring of emergency powers to prevent long-term damage to the rule of law.
Related publications
Related Research
The Gender Hubcast
