Health Law - Bill of Health

Madison, Wisconsin / USA - April 24th, 2020: Nurses at Reopen Wisconsin Protesting against the protesters protesting safer at home order rally holding signs telling people to go home.

Safer at Home? Yes, but Not According to the Wisconsin Supreme Court

June 3, 2020June 3, 2020 Beatrice Brown Leave a comment

By Beatrice Brown, Jane Cooper, and Danielle Pacia

Due to the Bill of Health production schedule, this piece is being published two weeks after it was written, on May 20^th, 2020. The authors would like to affirm the importance of protests against anti-Black racism in America.

Stay-at-home orders—the primary means of managing the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S.—face increasing opposition as protestors against these public health measures clamor for a “return to normal.” In Wisconsin, pushback against stay-at-home orders culminated in the state Supreme Court’s decision on May 13 to reverse the state’s “Safer at Home” policy.

Republican leaders of the state legislature filed suit against state Department of Health Services Secretary-designee Andrea Palm and other health officials, resulting in the case Wisconsin Legislature v. Palm. In a 4-3 ruling, the Wisconsin Supreme Court held that the “Safer at Home” order was “unlawful” and “unenforceable.” Read More

Key Themes in “Global Responses to COVID-19” Symposium: Privacy and Health Rights

June 2, 2020June 12, 2020 Alicia Ely Yamin Leave a comment

By Alicia Ely Yamin

This post is the second analysis of key themes that have emerged from the digital symposium “Global Responses to COVID-19: Rights, Democracy, and the Law.”

1. The crisis exposes dramatically different impacts on the distinct interests protected as “privacy” rights.

Life in democratic societies is enhanced when the law protects what information and aspects of intimate personal life an individual shares with others.

But the pandemic has accelerated the use of a variety of surveillance technologies, which are now being introduced and/or rapidly expanded to trace the virus, and in turn individuals’ movements and lives. One South Korean legal expert interviewed for this symposium put it bluntly: “It looks like we’re living at the end of privacy.”

Madison, Wisconsin / USA - April 24, 2020: Demonstrators hold flags and signs at an anti lockdown rally on the steps of the Wisconsin State capitol. State Street is in the background.

Rights, Democracy, and the Law in the United States During COVID-19

June 1, 2020June 8, 2020 The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

Our latest digital symposium, Global Responses to COVID-19: Rights, Democracy, and the Law, presents a snapshot of the spectrum of rights-related measures adopted in response to the pandemic in dozens of countries to date.

Given the international focus of the symposium, we opted not to solicit a submission representing the situation in the United States. However, the Bill of Health blog has published numerous relevant posts on different dimensions of legal and policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States.

The selections below, which we will continually update, offer an array of perspectives on how the U.S. response to the pandemic has affected rights, democracy, and the rule of law.

Human Rights at Risk During the Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic in Mexico

June 1, 2020June 1, 2020 The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Sofía Charvel

Mexico is a country of contrasts; both in the richness of our culture as in the advances and shortcomings that have arisen in our path towards the effective protection of human rights. In the face of the health crisis due to COVID-19, violations to rights and liberties are a latent risk.

The Mexican Health System is too fragile to face COVID-19 due to the corruption and lack of investment of former administrations, and due to poorly-implemented reforms made by the current administration. Read More

Norway and the COVID-19 Lockdown

June 1, 2020June 1, 2020 The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Malcolm Langford and Kristin Bergtora Sandvik

On its face, Norway is a COVID-19 success story.

Facing rapidly increasing infection, the government introduced on March 12^th, 2020 a wide-ranging lockdown. The sovereign wealth fund was tapped to bolster public spending and ensure that welfare for most citizens remain relatively unchanged. By April, the outbreak was brought under control; and, as of May 7^th, domestic lockdown restrictions were partially eased.

This success is partly due to widespread trust in government and national public health authorities, and the mobilization of the deeply ingrained cultural concept of “dugnad,” voluntary and collective work. However, the government’s interventionist response raises many questions with respect to the rule of law and human rights, which we explore in this blog.

Masked statue of Meir Dizengoff, the first Mayor of Tel Aviv. Photo courtesy of Aeyal Gross.

Rights Restrictions and Securitization of Health in Israel During COVID-19

May 29, 2020June 1, 2020 The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Aeyal Gross

Facing the novel Coronavirus, Israel adopted a series of legal measures that have restricted various human rights both directly and indirectly.

The earliest restrictions — requirements established in February for people returning from abroad to isolate — were, in March, gradually broadened to restrict freedom of movement within Israel, ranging from a general lockdown, which at its peak restricted any outing to walking or exercising only within 100 meters of one’s home, except for specific purposes, to cordon sanitaire for areas with bigger outbreaks, which prohibited movement into and out of those regions.

The various restrictions created severe limitations not only on the right to freedom of movement itself, but also on family life, freedom of assembly, and freedom of religion.

The Canadian Response to COVID-19

May 28, 2020May 28, 2020 The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Vanessa Gruben

Like many other countries, different levels of government in Canada have adopted a wide range of measures in response to COVID-19. Many of the measures vary from province to province and municipality to municipality.

Canada is a federation composed of a federal government, three territorial governments (which operate with delegated federal authority), ten provincial governments, and thousands of municipal governments (which exercise powers delegated by the provinces).

Each level of government has distinct responsibilities under the Constitution Act, and each has used a variety of legal instruments including laws, regulations, executive orders, directives and by-laws, during the COVID-19 pandemic to protect public health. This brief overview offers a few examples of the legal instruments that have impacted individual civil liberties.

COVID-19 in France: Health as a Constitutional Value and Limitations on Civil Liberties

May 28, 2020June 1, 2020 The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Stéphanie Dagron

This piece was written on May 13, 2020 amid a rapidly evolving situation. The post reflects the state of knowledge at the time of writing.

In France, a state of sanitary emergency was declared for a period of two months starting on March 23^rd, 2020 in order to allow the authorities “to deal with the major health threat” created by SARS-Cov-2.

In many ways, this regime resembles the State of Emergency regime which currently exists in French law (Emergency Powers Law of April 3^rd, 1955). However, it seems the public authorities wished to instate, at least symbolically, a different regime from the ones imposed in times of terrorism or armed conflict.

How Denmark’s Epidemic Act Was Amended to Respond to COVID-19

May 26, 2020May 26, 2020 The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Janne Rothmar Herrmann

On March 12, 2020 the Danish Prime Minister informed the nation in a televised statement that she was effectively shutting down the country in response to COVID-19. She urged parents to keep their children home the next day, but gave schools, daycare centers, kindergartens, and all public employees two working days to shut down.

That same day Parliament passed an Act that made major changes in the Epidemic Act, which Denmark has had in force since 1915. The current Epidemic Act dates from 1979 and has been amended with minor revisions several times since then.

COVID-19, the Netherlands, and Human Rights: A Balancing Act

May 26, 2020May 26, 2020 The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Brigit Toebes

The Netherlands, a country with 17 million inhabitants, had its first COVID-19 hospitalizations in the beginning of March 2020. On March 16th, Prime Minister Mark Rutte announced a range of measures aimed at “maximum control,” but not “maximum containment” of the virus: in other words, social distancing measures, but no full lockdown.

After an initial two-month closure, schools, sports clubs, bars and restaurants began gradually reopening after May 18^th. All major events, however, remain cancelled until further notice. According to the statistics, by May 22, over 11,000 people had been hospitalized and nearly 5,800 people had died.

Tag: Health Law