As a direct consequence of the CCP’s decision to not share information about the initial stages of the outbreak of COVID-19 from December 2019 – January 2020 the disease spread far faster than it would otherwise have done and reactions by countries globally were hampered. It is possible that – had accurate information have been provided at an early juncture – the infection would not have left China.

Written by Rosalind English

Co-Editor | UK Human Rights Blog

June 22, 2020

Article originally published by UK Human Rights Blog

What is international law for, if it cannot be enforced against the country responsible for breach? That is the question raised by a recent report documenting a series of steps by the Chinese Communist party to conceal from the World Health Organisation and the rest of the world the outbreak and human-to-human transmission of coronavirus. If we want a rules-based international order to mean anything, the authors of the report point out, it must be upheld.

In a world in which authoritarian states often act with impunity, it is tempting to forget that the rules-based international order places obligations on everyone. The Peoples’ Republic of China (PRC) is no exception to this rule. International law – in the form of Treaties, Covenants and Charters – places obligations on China, just as much as it does on the democracies of the West.

This paper identifies a number of possible legal avenues by which the wider world can pursue the PRC for the damages inflicted by its response to the COVID-19 outbreak.

I will attempt a summary of the report in the following paragraphs . . .

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World Federal Government (WFG)

Original Publisher

UK Human Rights Blog

Rosalind English is a former academic who now co-edits the UK Human Rights Blog and undertakes comparative and public law research for members of chambers. She also presents Law Pod UK, a new series of podcasts on legal developments relevant to Chambers’s work.

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