Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-13T11:40:22.343Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Modest International Law: COVID-19, International Legal Responses, and Depoliticization

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 October 2020

Francisco-José Quintana  and
Justina Uriburu
Francisco-José Quintana
Affiliation:
PhD in Law Candidate and Gates Cambridge Scholar, University of Cambridge. We are indebted to Alejandro Chehtman, Luis Eslava, Sebastián Guidi, Nico Krisch, Sarah Nouwen, Phil Saengkrai, and Marina Veličković for their insightful comments.
Justina Uriburu
Affiliation:
PhD in International Law Candidate, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this Essay, we analyze two sets of international legal responses to the COVID-19 pandemic: the academic discussion on state responsibility; and the deployment of international law as a tool for resistance. We argue that both approaches made significant contributions but concealed the role of the discipline in the production of the conditions that led to the pandemic and its unequal impact. These interventions reflect a “modest international law”; an understanding of the discipline that hinders change and is ethically weak. We contend that repoliticization can help reclaim international law's ambition and responsibility.

Type
The International Legal Order and the Global Pandemic
Information
American Journal of International Law , Volume 114 , Issue 4 , October 2020 , pp. 687 - 697
Copyright
Copyright © 2020 by The American Society of International Law

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Charlesworth, Hilary, International Law: A Discipline of Crisis, 65 Mod. L. Rev. 377 (2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 On counterpoint international law, see Kennedy, David, When Renewal Repeats: Thinking Against the Box, 32 N.Y.U. J. Int'l L. & Pol. 335 (2000)Google Scholar.

3 International Health Regulations, May 23, 2005, 2509 UNTS 79; James Kraska, China Is Legally Responsible for COVID-19 Damage and Claims Could Be in the Trillions, War On The Rocks (Mar. 23, 2020), at https://warontherocks.com/2020/03/china-is-legally-responsible-for-covid-19-damage-and-claims-could-be-in-the-trillions; Peter Tzeng, Taking China to the International Court of Justice Over COVID-19, EJIL:Talk! (Apr. 2, 2020), at https://www.ejiltalk.org/taking-china-to-the-international-court-of-justice-over-covid-19; Henning Lahmann, Does China Really Owe the World Trillions of Dollars?, Lawfare (May 7, 2020), at https://www.lawfareblog.com/does-china-really-owe-us-trillions-dollars-reparations-covid-19-light-bosnian-genocide-judgment; Valerio Mazzuoli, State Responsibility and COVID-19 : Bringing China to the International Court of Justice?, Int’l L. Blog (May 15, 2020), at https://internationallaw.blog/2020/05/15/state-responsibility-and-covid-19-bringing-china-to-the-international-court-of-justice. See also Natalie Klein, Can China Be Sued for COVID-19?, East Asia F. (May 18, 2020), at https://www.eastasiaforum.org/2020/05/18/can-china-be-sued-for-covid-19; Johanna Aleria Lorenzo, To Sue or Not to Sue, Völkerrechtsblog (June 4, 2020), at https://voelkerrechtsblog.org/to-sue-or-not-to-sue; Meagan Wong, The Law of State Responsibility and the COVID-19 Pandemic, in COVID-19, Law and Human Rights: Essex Dialogues (2020); WHO Let the Bats Out?, EJIL:The Podcast! (May 5, 2020), available at https://player.captivate.fm/episode/a125dc3e-6fe0-4f9c-9a2b-a890a5bd7679.

4 See, e.g., Tzeng, supra note 3; Gian Luca Burci in EJIL:The Podcast!, supra note 3.

5 See, e.g., Tzeng, supra note 3; Hans Huremagić & Fritz Kainz, COVID-19, China and International Aviation Law: A Ticket to The Hague?, EJIL:Talk! (July 13, 2020), at https://www.ejiltalk.org/covid-19-china-and-international-aviation-law-a-ticket-to-the-hague.

6 See, e.g., Antonio Coco & Talita de Souza Dias, Prevent, Respond, Cooperate: States’ Due Diligence Duties Vis-à-vis the COVID-19 Pandemic, 1 J. Int’l Humanitarian Legal Stud. 1 (2020).

7 See, e.g., Federica Paddeu & Freya Jephcott, COVID-19 and Defences in the Law of State Responsibility: Part 1, EJIL:Talk! (Mar. 17, 2020), at https://www.ejiltalk.org/covid-19-and-defences-in-the-law-of-state-responsibility-part-i.

8 See, e.g., Stevie Martin, A Domestic Court's Attempt to Derogate from the ECHR on Behalf of the United Kingdom: The Implications of COVID-19 on Judicial Decision-Making in the United Kingdom, EJIL:Talk! (Apr. 9,2020), at https://www.ejiltalk.org/a-domestic-courts-attempt-to-derogate-from-the-echr-on-behalf-of-the-united-kingdom-the-implications-of-covid-19-on-judicial-decision-making-in-the-united-kingdom.

9 Roberto Mangabeira Unger, The Critical Legal Studies Movement: Another Time, a Greater Task 47 (2015).

10 Roberto Mangabeira Unger, What Should Legal Analysis Become? 106–08 (1996).

11 Fuad Zarbiyev, On Judge-Centeredness of the International Legal Self (manuscript on file with authors).

12 See Events: The Force of International Law (Fleur Johns, Richard Joyce & Sundhya Pahuja eds., 2011).

13 Charlesworth, supra note 1.

14 Kennedy, supra note 2, at 397–401. These practices are characteristic of “traditional approaches” to international law. See Andrea Bianchi, International Law Theories 21–43 (2016).

15 Charlesworth, supra note 1, at 384.

16 Martins Paparinskis, COVID-19 and the Foundations of International Law, Opinio Juris (Mar. 31, 2020), at https://opiniojuris.org/2020/03/31/covid-19-symposium-covid-19-and-the-foundations-of-international-law; David Fidler, COVID-19 and International Law: Must China Compensate Countries for the Damage?, Just Security (Mar. 27, 2020), at https://www.justsecurity.org/69394/covid-19-and-international-law-must-china-compensate-countries-for-the-damage-international-health-regulations.

17 Michael A. Becker, Do We Need an International Commission of Inquiry for COVID-19 ? Part I, EJIL:Talk! (May 18, 2020), at https://www.ejiltalk.org/do-we-need-an-international-commission-of-inquiry-for-covid-19-part-i; Sandrine De Herdt, A Reference to the ICJ for an Advisory Opinion Over COVID-19 Pandemic, EJIL:Talk! (May 20, 2020), at https://www.ejiltalk.org/a-reference-to-the-icj-for-an-advisory-opinion-over-covid-19-pandemic.

18 Allott, Philip, State Responsibility and the Unmaking of International Law, 29 Harv. Int'l. L.J. 1, 13–14 (1988)Google Scholar.

19 Unger, supra note 10, at 129–30.

20 Orford, Anne, Theorizing Free Trade, in The Oxford Handbook of the Theory of International Law 702 (Orford, Anne & Hoffmann, Florian eds., 1st ed. 2016)Google Scholar.

21 Tomaso Ferrando, Law and Global Value Chains at the Time of COVID-19 : A Systemic Approach Beyond Contracts and Tort, Eur. Ass’n Private Int’l L. (March 20, 2020), at https://eapil.org/2020/03/20/law-and-global-value-chains-at-the-time-of-covid-19-a-systemic-approach-beyond-contracts-and-tort.

22 We thank Nico Krisch for pressing us on this point.

23 Charlesworth, supra note 1, at 391.

24 See Otto, Dianne, Decoding Crisis in International Law: A Queer Feminist Perspective, in International Law and Its Discontents: Confronting Crises 115, 116 (Stark, Barbara ed., 2015)Google Scholar.

25 See Laurence Blair & Cindy Jiménez Bercerra, Is Bolivia's “Interim” President Using the Pandemic to Outstay Her Welcome?, Guardian (June 1, 2020), at https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/jun/01/bolivia-president-jeanine-anez-coronavirus-elections.

26 On the role of panic in “crisis governance,” see Otto, supra note 24.

27 See HCR, Statement on Derogations from the Covenant in Connection with the COVID-19 Pandemic, UN Doc. CCPR/C/128/2 (Apr. 30, 2020).

28 See Otto, supra note 24, at 117–29.

29 Tom Ginsburg, Democracies and International Law: The Trials of Liberalism (Part 2), available at https://www.lcil.cam.ac.uk/lectures-events/hersch-lauterpacht-memorial-lectures.

30 European Commission v. Republic of Poland, C-619/18, ECLI:EU:C:2019:531, Judgment of 24 June 2019.

31 What Should the EU Do About Hungary?, Politico (Apr. 14, 2020), at https://www.politico.eu/article/what-should-the-eu-do-about-hungary-coronavirus-viktor-orban.

32 See Kathryn Sikkink, The Justice Cascade: How Human Rights Prosecutions Are Changing World Politics (2011).

33 See International Justice Resource Center, COVID-19 Guidance from Supranational Human Rights Bodies, at https://ijrcenter.org/covid-19-guidance-from-supranational-human-rights-bodies.

34 Organization of American States, SACROI COVID-19, at http://www.oas.org/en/iachr/SACROI_COVID19.

35 Bruno Latour, La crise sanitaire incite à se préparer à la mutation climatique, Le Monde (Mar. 25, 2020), at https://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2020/03/25/la-crise-sanitaire-incite-a-se-preparer-a-la-mutation-climatique_6034312_3232.html.

36 Id.

37 See Charlesworth, supra note 1; Otto, supra note 24; David Kennedy, A World of Struggle: How Power, Law, and Expertise Shape Global Political Economy (2016).

38 Marks, Susan, Human Rights and Root Causes, 74 Mod. L. Rev. 57 (2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

39 A prominent exception is GA Res. 41/128 (Dec. 4, 1986).

40 FAO, Addressing Inequality in Times of COVID-19 (June 18, 2020), at http://www.fao.org/3/ca8843en/CA8843EN.pdf.

41 Samuel Moyn, Not Enough: Human Rights in an Unequal World (2018).

42 However, a forceful critical argument has been made in favor of an “ethos of modesty” in international law. See Nouwen, Sara Kendall & Sarah M. H., Speaking of Legacy: Toward an Ethos of Modesty at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, 110 AJIL 212 (2016)Google Scholar.

43 Kennedy, supra note 37, at 256–76.

44 Roberto Mangabeira Unger, The Universal History of Legal Thought 20, available at http://www.robertounger.com/en/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/the-universal-history-of-legal-thought.pdf.

45 Bianchi, supra note 14, at 1–20.

46 On TWAIL and political engagement, see Eslava, Luis & Pahuja, Sundhya, Between Resistance and Reform: TWAIL and the Universality of International Law, 3 Trade, L. & Dev. 103 (2011)Google Scholar.

47 Unger, supra note 9, at 47–49.

48 Matiangai Sirleaf, Africa, COVID-19 and Responsibility, Afronomics L. (May 12, 2020), at https://www.afronomicslaw.org/2020/05/12/africa-covid-19-and-responsibility.

49 Margot E. Salomon, Reconstituting the Unequal Global System After Pandemic – A Cautionary Tale of International Law, LSE COVID-19 Blog (June 11, 2020), at https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/covid19/2020/06/11/long-read-the-pandemic-is-an-opportunity-to-reconstitute-the-unequal-global-system; The IEL Collective, International Economic Law & COVID-19, Critical Legal Thinking (Mar. 27, 2020), at https://criticallegalthinking.com/2020/03/27/international-economic-law-covid-19.

50 Celine Tan, International Public Finance and COVID-19: A New Architecture Is Urgently Needed, IEL Collective (Apr. 17, 2020), at https://medium.com/iel-collective/international-public-finance-and-covid-19-a-new-architecture-is-urgently-needed-6a364c43141e.

51 See, e.g., TWAILR:EXTRA, TWAIL-Related Commentary on the Coronavirus Pandemic (May 13, 2020), at https://twailr.com/twail-related-commentary-on-the-coronavirus-pandemic; Afronomics Symposia on COVID-19, Afronomics L., at https://www.afronomicslaw.org/symposia.

52 See Luis Eslava, Local Space, Global Life: The Everyday Operation of International Law and Development (2015).

53 See B. S. Chimni, International Law and World Order: A Critique of Contemporary Approaches 12 (2d ed. 2017).

54 When seen through the lens of necessity, in turn, current arrangements are not celebrated, but subject to structural critique.

55 Ginsburg, Tom, Authoritarian International Law?, 114 AJIL 221 (2020)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

56 Unger, supra note 9, at 53–67.