Human rights in emergency response - Emergencies, wellbeing and social justice in the Anthropocene

During my career of over 30 years I have always been concerned with how international law can be applied to national rights rather than international law in more general terms.  

The idea that international norms and international negotiation processes are ineffective and solve very few problems, at least in the field of health, is a false one, and with the covid-19 pandemic this has become clearer than ever. The World Health Organization norms, even though fragile, even with the dysfunctions that the World Health Organization certainly has, were decisive for local governments in several countries to confront national governments that did not take action to contain the spread of covid-19. The international norms were the basis for administrative decisions, the adoption of laws, and were essential for local governments and also social actors to defend measures to protect the health of the population. 

For some countries and situations, these international frameworks will be our only legal tool to fight for rights. Can the paradigm of emergencies and health be harnessed in planetary health? International norms and international negotiations are important. When nation states fail, these international reference points save lives, and they have saved many lives in Brazil, although unfortunately obviously not as many as we would have liked. 

Human Rights before, during and after an ‘emergency’

There is an important difference between protecting human rights during an emergency and focusing on emergencies from a human rights perspective. They are two different things. Of course, it is very important to respect Human Rights during an emergency, but we have to do much more than that. We have to look at emergencies and design responses based on human rights. 

Human rights are present before the emergencies, in the determinants of the catastrophes, in the causes, in the conditions that will determine how people will live through these emergencies. And there is the aftermath of the emergencies, which has a brutal impact on human rights, not only in the developing world but also in developed countries. 

Attention is given much more to the ‘during’ than to the ‘before’ and ‘after’. And, in this 'during', there is a great concern over a historical legacy, because for us, in law, emergency is synonymous with exception. Exception means the total or partial suspension of legal regimes, and this exceptionality has material patrimonial consequences, for example authoritarian decisions on exceptional hiring of personnel, exceptional budget management rules. This in turn has effects on fundamental freedoms and human rights more broadly. 

People tend to think that human rights and emergency, in the case of health, refers to quarantine or treatment, but there are also other important social rights such as labour rules, social welfare rules, and social security rules that are interrupted, as well as fundamental freedoms more broadly. Because in general, during an emergency, there is a suspension of the participatory process, and the suspension of democratic rules. 

The broader question is, to what extent could we reflect and transpose this reflection to the debate about the climate emergency or environmental or planetary emergency?

Checkout the full version of Deisy’s talk and the other panellists in Session 2 via YouTube, as well as the other sessions:

Introduction ENGLISH
Session 1  Epistemological perspectives  
Session 2  Empirical experiences
Session 3 Future scenarios
Final Summary Session

Introdução PORTUGUES
Seção 1 Perspectivas epistemológicas 
Seção 2 Experiências empíricas
Seção 3 Cenários Futuros
Seção final - Síntese