Pandemics and Emergency Powers in Asia

This chapter looks at emergency powers under Covid-19 in Asia. The ancient Roman model of dictatorship suggests that any legal framework for responding to an emergency has two components: dealing effectively with the threat and preventing abuse. How can these goals best be secured in a pandemic? Within the first few months of the Covid-19 pandemic, it become readily apparent that it posed two kinds of threat. First, it posed a mortal threat to individual and public health arising from a deadly virus that could be transmitted relatively easily through everyday social activities. Second, the efforts of governments to contain its spread inevitably led to a secondary danger as social and economic life was shuttered—the danger of social and political unrest. The chapter considers two dimensions of the governmental response: the formal legal structure under which that response operates and the dynamics of expertise, trust, and responsiveness to feedback that it potentially fosters—or inhibits. It argues that the goal of returning to normal is best served when these two dimensions—the legal framework and the expertise-feedback dynamic—are aligned to enable the society to respond effectively and fairly.