Gauging the Advisory Jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice in the Face of COVID-19
JURIST 2020, https://www.jurist.org/commentary/2020/04/atul-alexander-icj-covid/
8 Pages Posted: 10 Feb 2022
Date Written: December 18, 2020
Abstract
The COVID-19 outbreak has shocked and de-globalized the international community. The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the outbreak a pandemic and several scholars have argued that China breached International Health Regulations (IHR) by not preventing the spread of the deadly COVID-19. The IHR aim to aid the international community in preventing and responding to acute public health crises with the potential to cross borders and threaten people worldwide. The IHR work through an emergency committee that provides technical advice to the WHO Director-General in the context of a “public health emergency of international concern,” which is defined as “an extraordinary event which is determined to constitute a public health risk to other States through the international spread of disease and to require a coordinated international response potentially.” The views of the world community are that China has not complied with the IHR, in particular scholars maintain that China violated Article 7 of the IHR concerning information-sharing and Article 3 which categorically states that the IHR principles shall be respected with full dignity, human rights and fundamental freedoms. This being the case, one could argue that China breached the human rights of its citizens by not respecting the IHR principles. The mechanism under Article 56 of the IHR provides for arbitration as a means of settlement of a dispute with the consent of the disputed state, in this instance obtaining the consent of China is highly unlikely; moreover, one of the prerequisites for Article 56 to be put into operation is the existence of a ‘dispute.’
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