Legal Approaches to Responding to Emergencies: Covid-19 as a Case Study

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charmaine Rodrigues

During the Covid-19 pandemic, numerous countries invoked different constitutional provisions and laws to respond to the unexpected health crisis. Constitutional INSIGHTS No. 6 examines the use and non-use of state of emergency powers by countries across Asia and the Pacific in response to the COVID 19 pandemic, and the implications for other democratic rights and processes.

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (65) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sergio García-de-Paz ◽  
Pablo Joel Santana Bonilla

La declaración del estado de alarma en marzo de 2020, ocasionada por la crisis sanitaria de la COVID-19, provocó en España el cierre de todos los centros educativos. Este artículo pretende explorar el proceso de transición de la docencia presencial a lo que se ha denominado docencia remota de emergencia, y sus implicaciones para las propuestas educativas futuras. Nuestros objetivos son: explorar qué condiciones de partida han influido en el proceso de transición a la docencia remota de emergencia (DRE), qué implicaciones pedagógicas y organizativas ha supuesto la DRE y hacia qué modelo de docencia debería transitarse en el contexto actual de emergencia sanitaria. Para ello hemos realizado un estudio de caso de un equipo docente de Formación Profesional Básica de un centro. Las conclusiones principales sugieren que hay tres elementos que han facilitado el tránsito a una docencia remota de emergencia pero que también podrían contribuir a construcción de entornos de educación virtual: la existencia de una infraestructura digital en el centro para la docencia y la comunicación; un modelo de organización escolar basado en el liderazgo compartido y la autonomía de los equipos docentes; y la visión del profesorado acerca de la familia como agente educativo esencial. The declaration of a state of emergency in March 2020, due to the COVID-19 health crisis, caused the closure of all schools in Spain. This article aims to explore the transition from face-to-face teaching to what has been called emergency remote teaching, as well as its implications for future educational proposals. Our objectives are: to explore what conditions have influenced the process of transition toward emergency remote teaching (ERT), the pedagogical and organisational implications of EST and which teaching model should be transitioned to in the current heath emergency context. In order to achieve them we have conducted a case study of a teaching team in Initial Vocational Education and Training of a school. The main conclusions suggest that there are three elements that have facilitated the transit to a remote emergency teaching which could also contribute to the building of virtual education environments: the presence of a digital infrastructure at the school for teaching and communication; an educational organisation model based on leadership and autonomy of teaching teams; and the teachers' vision of the family as an essential educational agent.


Author(s):  
Sadiq Reza

The Arab Republic of Egypt has been in a declared state of emergency since 1981 and for all but three of the past fifty years. Emergency powers, military courts, and other "exceptional" powers are governed by longstanding statutes in Egypt and authorized by the constitution, and their use is a prominent feature of everyday rule there today. This essay presents Egypt as a case study in what is essentially permanent governance by emergency rule and other exceptional measures. It summarizes the history and framework of emergency rule in Egypt, discusses the apparent purposes and consequences of that rule, mentions judicial limitations on it, and notes the many targets of its exercise over the years, particularly the government's two most prominent and persistent groups of opponents: Islamists and liberal political activists. It also explains how the country's March 2007 constitutional amendments, much decried by humanrights organizations inside and outside Egypt, further entrench emergency rule there. The thesis of the essay is that the existence and exercise of emergency powers have been far from exceptional in Egypt; instead they have been a vehicle for the creation of the modern Egyptian state and a tool for the consolidation and maintenance of political power by the government.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 140
Author(s):  
Kate Seewald

In Covid-19, a vast number of countries have faced their biggest public health crisis in a century. For many such countries, the pandemic has emerged at a critical juncture following consecutive years of so-called democratic backsliding, where political space has narrowed and fundamental freedoms are under increasing threat. This trend is particularly observable within hybrid regimes under “Strongman” rule. A question posed by the Covid-19 crisis is the extent to which such regimes are taking advantage of the pandemic in order to hastily usher in new restrictions on human rights. Such leaders, it has been claimed, are actively capitalising on the crisis to further cement their rule, and to rapidly stock their arsenals with weapons of “lawfare” to more efficiently quash current or future dissent. A secondary, related question is the extent to which such accusations are being unfairly levelled against leaders of hybrid regimes for taking steps that liberal democracies are also taking without the same level of scrutiny from international observers. After all, the legitimate limitation by states of citizens’ exercise of their rights in times of exception is a norm firmly set out in international law. This article uses a case study of Cambodia, focusing on the impact of its Covid-19 response on the exercise of free expression. Applying the “three-part test,” it analyses whether Cambodia’s response falls within the permissible restrictions on freedom of expression during a time of normalcy (given Cambodia, at the time of writing, has not declared a state of emergency). It then also assesses whether Cambodia’s newly promulgated Emergency Law should be seen as a clear case of a hybrid regime exploiting Covid-19 to hasten restrictions on rights, or whether the criticism levelled against it is excessive, given the constitutional basis for such legislation and the critical nature of the Covid-19 pandemic.


2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 153-179
Author(s):  
Angie Chung ◽  
Johng Song ◽  
Carolyn Choi

Based on the experiences of a Koreatown scholar, the executive director of a Koreatown nonprofit, and a longtime resident student, the article advocates for greater attention to the complex and dynamic power structures of ethnic enclaves in community-academic partnerships. We discuss the changing landscapes of Koreatown as the global nexus of the Pacific Rim economy, the city of Los Angeles’s urban redevelopment plans, and growing diversity and inequality. Programs that aim to engage effectively with ethnic communities must reassess how knowledge is produced and conveyed, how we structure partnerships within stratified communities, and how to grow from issue-based partnerships to broader communities of interest.


2021 ◽  
pp. 194016122110180
Author(s):  
Meghan M. Shea ◽  
James Painter ◽  
Shannon Osaka

While studies have investigated UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) meetings as drivers of climate change reporting as well as the geopolitical role of Pacific Islands in these international forums, little research examines the intersection: how media coverage of Pacific Islands and climate change (PICC) may be influenced by, or may influence, UNFCCC meetings. We analyze two decades of reporting on PICC in American, British, and Australian newspapers—looking at both volume and content of coverage—and expand the quantitative results with semi-structured interviews with journalists and Pacific stakeholders. Issue attention on PICC increases and the content changes significantly in the periods around UNFCCC meetings, with shifts from language about vulnerability outside of UNFCCC periods to language about agency and solutions. We explore the implications of these differences in coverage for both agenda setting and the amplification of emotional appeals in UNFCCC contexts.


Forests ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 827
Author(s):  
Omar Mologni ◽  
Eric D. T. Nance ◽  
C. Kevin Lyons ◽  
Luca Marchi ◽  
Stefano Grigolato ◽  
...  

Cable tensile forces in winch-assist harvesting have been investigated in order to assess the safety concerns of the technology. However, the literature is lacking, particularly in regards to the impact of winch design. In this study, a Summit Winch Assist tethering a feller-director on ground slopes up to 77% was monitored for four days. The cable tensile forces were simultaneously recorded at the harvesting and anchor machine at a frequency of 100 Hz. Cameras and GNSS devices enabled a time study of the operations and the recording of machine positions. Winch functionality and design were disclosed by the manufacturer and used for the interpretation of the results. The cable tensile forces reached 296 kN at the harvesting machine and 260 kN at the anchor machine. The slow negotiation of obstacles while moving downhill recorded the highest peaks, mainly due to threshold settings of the winch in the brake system activation. Lower but significant peaks were also recorded during stationary work tasks. The peaks, however, were limited to a few events and never exceeded the endurance limit of the cable. Overall, the study confirmed recent findings in cable tensile force analysis of active winch-assist operations and provided evidence of the underlaying mechanisms that contribute to cable tensile forces.


2016 ◽  
Vol 371 (1689) ◽  
pp. 20150213 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabrice Pernet ◽  
Coralie Lupo ◽  
Cédric Bacher ◽  
Richard J. Whittington

Emerging diseases pose a recurrent threat to bivalve aquaculture. Recently, massive mortality events in the Pacific oyster Crassostrea gigas associated with the detection of a microvariant of the ostreid herpesvirus 1 (OsHV-1µVar) have been reported in Europe, Australia and New Zealand. Although the spread of disease is often viewed as a governance failure, we suggest that the development of protective measures for bivalve farming is presently held back by the lack of key scientific knowledge. In this paper, we explore the case for an integrated approach to study the management of bivalve disease, using OsHV-1 as a case study. Reconsidering the key issues by incorporating multidisciplinary science could provide a holistic understanding of OsHV-1 and increase the benefit of research to policymakers.


Social Change ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 51 (4) ◽  
pp. 475-482
Author(s):  
Zoya Hasan

The recent spread of the delta variant of the COVID-19 pandemic in many countries, though uneven, has once again set alarm bells ringing throughout the world. Nearly two years have passed since the onset of this pandemic: vaccines have been developed and vaccination is underway, but the end of the campaign against the pandemic is nowhere in sight. This drive has merely attempted to adjust and readjust, with or without success, to the various fresh challenges that have kept emerging from time to time. The pandemic’s persistence and its handling by the governments both have had implications for citizens’/peoples’ rights as well as for the systems which were in place before the pandemic. In this symposium domain experts investigate, with a sharp focus on India, the interface between the COVID-19 pandemic and democracy, health, education and social sciences. These contributions are notable for their nuanced and insightful examination of the impact of the pandemic on crucial social development issues with special attention to the exacerbated plight of society’s marginalised sections. In India, as in several other countries, the COVID-19 pandemic has affected democracy. The health crisis came at a moment when India was already experiencing democratic backsliding. The pandemic came in handy in imposing greater restrictions on democratic rights, public discussion and political opposition. This note provides an analysis and commentary on how the government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic impacted governance, at times undermining human rights and democratic processes, and posing a range of new challenges to democracy.


2000 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-9
Author(s):  
David Robie

The Pacific has entered the third millennium after a tempestuous time in the final year of the 20th Century. All the recent events have had an impact on the region's media.The fragile peace in Bougainville has continued to experience hiccups; the state of emergency in the Solomon Islands over ethnic unrest and even the historic change of government in the Fiji Islands with the country's first Indo-Fijian prime minister. have unleashed tensions. But the major upheaval, of course, has been East Timor's devastating transition to independence from Indonesia and in the resurgence of West Papua ( recently "renamed" Papua from Irian Jaya by Jakarta's colonial authorities) as a news story.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Donasiano Kalou Ruru

<p>As a result of increasing development challenges and higher aid allocations to the Pacific, questions of aid effectiveness have become increasingly important. Efforts to professionalise aid delivery tools have been accompanied by debates over whether delivery tools are effective and compatible with more democratic and empowering relationships with beneficiaries. My research examines the effectiveness of international aid to teacher development, using the AusAID funded projects at Lautoka Teachers' College as a case study and the Fiji College of Advanced Education as background study. The conditions governing aid delivery mechanisms are explored, including logical frameworks, participatory processes, and financial probity. These conditions have been drawn from the 'Paris Declaration of Aid Effectiveness' and each is considered to be critical if aid effectiveness is to be enhanced and the investment sustained. Based on participatory research methodology, carried out through 'talanoa sessions', semià à ¢ structured interviews, and analysis of programme documents, the study explored the extent to which aid programmes and management practices are constrained by donor conditions, succeed in meeting their stated aims, and what sort of unintended consequences are generated. Further, the research identified how aid can best improve future aid to the Fiji education system through its delivery, impact and sustainability for national development, as laid out in the Pacific Principles of Aid Effectiveness The study also highlights the growing convergence between the 'aid donors' interests' and 'aid recipients' needs'. The debate on this relationship is necessary to reinvigorate thinking on the effectiveness of aid delivery for Fiji. The study draws up a practical framework, an aid bure designed as a heuristic device to assess the effectiveness of aid delivery for Fiji. The model may also be relevant to the wider Pacific context, and contribute to the global quest for a concrete guide to best practice which above all will continue to foster more sensitive, effective and enduring links between recipient countries and international aid donors.</p>


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