ABSTRACT
This article discusses the challenges that the COVID-19 pandemic poses to the current concepts of globalization, universality of human rights, and the rules-based international order. This article discusses how Russia has used the COVID-19 pandemic to accelerate its move away from Western ideas and institutions so as to solidify the power of its executive branch. In particular, this article examines the Russian Constitutional Court in its dealings with both the 2020 Russian constitutional amendments and the government's lockdown measures. This article concludes that the Russian Constitutional Court-which is supposed to serve as a key guarantor of fundamental rights of citizens against the machinery of the state-is becoming increasingly politicized, which threatens the Court's independence. Russia's desire to strengthen the power of the executive branch, to retreat further into traditional notions of sovereignty, and to move away from international norms and institutions, is not unique. The COVID-19 pandemic has served as a powerful catalyst in magnifying and intensifying the existing divisions in the current international order.
ABSTRACT
This article aims to explore the political mythology created by the Polish government and its subservient organizations with an aim to legitimize quasi-militant democracy as a new form of sacred in the populist discourse during the pandemic. Drawing on theories of political myths and on intertextual qualitative document analysis, the research shows that the sacred appeared in political myths which proved to be an efficient means of gaining public support for all sorts of efforts that undermine democracy. The conspiracy myth established social divisions and produced effects along with the interrelated myths of the savior, unity, and the golden age. The government took on the role of a savior whose mission was to deliver Poles "the people" from the hostile "others" that put their lives and health at risk. Those who desire social and economic help and do not want to be excluded from the community, must submit to the yoke of the savior. The unity myth rested on the vision of Poles as the government's followers who exposed and reported transgressions for the good of the community. All the limitations to which Poles complied and the denunciatory actions they took were oriented towards the golden age of a strong state, providing social and economic security unique in the post-pandemic world.
ABSTRACT
This letter to the editor highlights other than just medical aspects of ongoing pandemics, just before the third/fourth wave of COVID-19, arriving back to the EU, having destroyed several economic and trade structures in China and Korea in recent months. However, we have some advantages in comparison to December 2019. First, (i) testing is widely available, accessible, cheap and more accurate. Second, vaccines are on the market (ii) and 4.5 billion of the whole population are vaccinated, (iii) Third two molecules of antivirals are registered for clinical use and finally (iv) several judications on both sides of the At- lantic may help to protect the global and local Public Health. In this first letter, we have selected some - according to space - important judgments supporting the protection of health care on one side, and minimizing the side effect of pandemics to human rights, economic bills and legal structure of pandemic response.
ABSTRACT
Purpose>The purpose of this paper is to describe restrictions on freedoms of expression and press that have arisen during the coronavirus pandemic and to show the public health impact of these restrictions.Design/methodology/approach>General PubMed and Google searches were used to review human rights violations both historically and during the current coronavirus pandemic. Special attention was paid to publications produced by groups dedicated to monitoring human rights abuses.Findings>During the coronavirus pandemic, many governments have used the guise of controlling the virus to silence critics and stifle the press. Though these restrictions were supposedly orchestrated to fight the virus, they have done just the opposite: suppression of expression and press has hindered public health efforts and exacerbated the spread of the virus. By reducing case reporting, allowing for the spread of misinformation and blocking productive debate, violations of human rights to free expression and press have worsened the coronavirus outbreak.Originality/value>This study shows the ways in which human rights are both threatened and particularly important in crises.
ABSTRACT
Since 2017, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) has incorporated human rights risk assessments into its bidding requirements for major events, beginning with the competition to host the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup.1 This process began at a time of increased scrutiny on the impact of major events and greater focus on the applicability of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) to sport. In 2014, the Centre for Sport and Human Rights’ founding Chair Mary Robinson, together with John Ruggie (author of the UNGPs), wrote to FIFA in their respective capacities as Patron and Chair of the Institute for Human Rights and Business (IHRB) to stress the need for ‘sustained due diligence […] with respect to decisions about host nations and how major sporting events are planned and implemented’.2 Following recommendations set forth in the letter, expanded upon in Ruggie’s 2016 report ‘For the Game, For the World’, FIFA introduced robust bidding requirements that any country or region wishing to bid to host a World Cup will have to conduct a human rights risk assessment and outline how they intend to mitigate each of the risks identified.3 These requirements are designed to align the World Cup bidding process with the UNGPs.
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This comparative study draws on empirical analysis of restrictions on freedom of assembly implemented in national legislation and used in practice. The study aims to identify and account for how in consolidated democracies, authority states implement a hybrid strategy of restricting freedom of assembly since the economic crisis of 2008 triggered a wave of social mobilization across Europe. The final turning point is 2019, the moment before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Comparative studies draw on qualitative analysis of sources: national legislation and NGOs' reports. This research uncovers restrictions on public assemblies implemented in consolidated democracy and evaluates their scope and effectiveness in combating social groups recognized as enemies of democracy. Moreover, it determines how they changed over time, which is significant to explain the distinction between national legislation and protection provisions. This comparative study contributes to the research on the limitation of the above-mentioned civil rights and freedoms in consolidated democracies.
ABSTRACT
Achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 is one of the European Union’s key priorities. Yet, the attitude of numerous politicians, of the professional community, and of society in general towards the threat posed by climate change is ambivalent. Arguments are frequently heard about the transition to a low-carbon economy that will be very costly, with increased unemployment, and that in reality climate change may not even be that severe. Added to this, there are human rights and freedoms, and in the case of architects and designers, the right to freedom of creation, to choice of materials, etc. The present article seeks to show that the issue of sustainable architecture and construction is not a whim, but an absolute necessity, and that true freedom lies in recognizing this fact and adapting our actions accordingly. However, even if we have the good intentions to adapt the needed actions, there is still the question of how to react in the right way, without causing myriad unwanted side-effects or being completely counterproductive. As there is not yet any comprehensive account of the history of energy-efficient and sustainable building and architecture, this paper has attempted to give a brief overview of developments in this field from a Central European perspective. Furthermore, the aim was to point out some conceptual mistakes that have been made in the past and that should be avoided.
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Pelaksanaan hak untuk berkumpul secara aman sewaktu pandemik ini dilihat membahayakan, terutamanya bila wabak ini mudah berjangkit. Jawatankuasa Pertubuhan Bangsa-bangsa Bersatu telah mengambil komen awam no.37 yang menerangkan skop perlindungan Perkara 21 Konvensyen Antarabangsa mengenai Hak Politik dan Sivil 1966. Makalah ini adalah kajian normatif mengenai tafsiran yang dibuat oleh Jawatankuasa Hak Asasi Manusia dan menilai kecukupan tafsiran tersebut dalam melindungi kebebasan berhimpun sewaktu kecemasan kesihatan umum. Ini menunjukkan Jawatankuasa Hak Asasi Manusia telah melakukan kaedah yang teliti untuk mentafsir skop perlindungan di bawah Perkara 21 ICCPR dan komen am no.37 memberi skop perlindungan yang banyak, termasuklah garis panduan yang teliti mengenai cara untuk melakukan kebebasan berhimpun sewaktu kecemasan kesihatan awam.Alternate :Implementing the right of peaceful assembly in the midst of a pandemic seems dangerous, especially when the disease is highly infectious. The United Nations Human Rights Committee then adopted General Comment No. 37 which explains the scope of protection of Article 21 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 1966. This writing is normative research on the interpretation made by the Human Rights Committee and assessing the sufficiency of the said interpretation in protecting the freedom of assembly in the midst of public health emergencies. It is found that the Human Rights Committee has conducted a thorough method in interpreting the protective scope of Article 21 of the ICCPR, whereas the General Comment No. 37 provides a vast protective scope, including a thorough guideline on how to conduct the freedom of assembly in times of public health emergency.
ABSTRACT
In late February 2021, “all 47 countries [in the World Health Organization (WHO) African region] had reported a total of 2,789,965 confirmed cases and 71,204 deaths with case fatality rate of 2.6%”.1 With limited availability of vaccines and the spread of variants, the WHO concluded in April 2021 that “the risk associated with further spread of the SARS-CoV-2 VOCs in the African Region is currently assessed as high to very high for the overall population and very high for vulnerable individuals”.2 The COVID-19 pandemic and the responses to it have generated common challenges and tensions, particularly concerning the relationship between public health measures on the one hand and the need to protect human rights and secure livelihoods on the other. [...]the pandemic has deepened inequality in many African countries, pushing vulnerable and marginalized groups further into poverty.3 Across Africa, these challenges have played out in distinctive local, national and transnational settings in which developments have been shaped by underlying structural factors and situation-specific dynamics and responses. Exploring the challenges posed by the need to secure access to COVID-19 vaccines, including the need to integrate intellectual property rights with public health policies, he recommends the adoption of a government use provision under the Nigerian Patents and Designs Act. In an important finding on the impact of public health emergencies on political transitions, he argues that the outbreak of the pandemic during the transition simultaneously aggravated the impact of COVID-19 and slowed down, if not jeopardised, the implementation of the constitutional declaration and a series of legislative reform and justice measures.