The Rights of Others and the Defense of Democracy: Disasters, Law and Human Rights
24 Pages Posted: 30 Oct 2024
Date Written: October 31, 2023
Abstract
At times, governments claim to act in defense of human rights when attempting to justify measures or omissions. This working paper is intended to serve as an introduction to this issue from the perspective of human rights, using the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic as an example. The focus of this paper will be on states’ human rights obligations, governments’ uses of human rights justifications to explain their actions or inactions and in particular on the relationship between the protection of human rights, the prevention of abuses of human rights, including abuses by states that attempt to engage in selective or false human rights justifications, and the connection between the need to protect human rights on one hand and democracy in Europe on the other hand.
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