The Rule of Law and Good Governance at the United Nations during the COVID-19 Pandemic

This contribution discusses how the United Nations (UN) adapted to the working conditions under the COVID-19 pandemic while respecting the rule of law and good governance at different levels. The article first examines what the rule of law means in the UN context. On this basis, the article then considers the different COVID-19-related emergency measures taken by the UN with a focus on four of the UN principal organs: the Secretariat, the Security Council, the General Assembly, and the International Court of Justice. Overall, the UN has succeeded in maintaining public trust, including the trust of its member states, in responding to and recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic because it continued to respect standards of good governance and the rule of law during the pandemic. Moreover, the UN has learned important lessons that will allow it to adapt even better to future emergencies.

Perspectives on the Emergency Remote Assessment during the COVID-19 Pandemic

The unprecedented health crisis triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic put on hold traditional educational practices. Emergency remote teaching was adopted as a response, with various degrees of success and satisfaction around the globe. This perspective chapter focuses on the remote emergency assessment as a measure to ensure the completion of the educational cycle for students caught in the 2020 crisis, after debates around the relevance and soundness of such activities both for students, and for society at large. Some voices enthusiastically champion the technological innovation and point to the benefits brought by the computer-assisted assessment, while others warn against the ‘one-size-fit-all’ approach and insist that the emergency measures need a careful examination and, although lessons can be taken away from the situation, the traditional patterns should be kept in place.

The paradigm of the migration crisis and its influence on national legislation on irregular migration

The aim of this article is to provide a detailed study of the ways in which the paradigm of crisis has influenced the law and practice of European countries in the field of irregular migration. Bearing in mind that the perception of “crisis” is ambiguous and does not have legal definition, the first part of this paper will provide a clarification of its scope and some contexts in which it is used. Secondly, labelling some situations as “crises” requires some urgent and unusual actions. Hence, it is important to indicate what types of legal measures and normative solutions, therefore, prevail nowadays in the practice of states. The countries that are particularly interesting in this context include Germany, Sweden, and Denmark, whose migration policies have, over the course of the past few years, decisively shifted from a relatively open approach towards more restrictive solutions. Although the crisis in the migration context is defined bipolarly, a characteristic feature of the paradigm shift is focusing on the elimination or at least limitation of the presence of foreigners on the territory of the statethrough border controls, obstruction of access to international protection and family reunification, as well as increasing the effectiveness of forced returns. The result of these consideration has led to the conclusion that on the one hand the authorities’ rhetoric of crisis not automatically mean the use of special and emergency measures foreseen by law. On the other hand, the narrative referring to defeat and catastrophe justified the introduction of controversial solutions in a hurry, often with disregard for the detailed analyses and regulatory impactassessment, which are common in such cases. At the same time, the determinant of the shape of the migration law is the “temporariness” inherent in the crisis paradigm. One of its most important elements is the departure from long-term residence permits, guaranteeing a certain stability in connection with international protection, in favour of short-term permits.

The rights of children from Gypsy/Traveller and Roma backgrounds in Scotland

The Scottish Government has a strong commitment to strengthening children’s human rights, with the aim of making Scotland ‘the best place to grow up and bring up children’. The Education (Scotland) Act 2016 introduced a raft of measures to boost the rights of children with additional support needs (ASN). The programme for government in Scotland, published in September 2020, included a commitment to incorporate the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child into Scottish domestic legislation. In order to examine the extent to which the rights of Gypsy/Traveller children are being respected in practice, this paper draws on an analysis of official statistics conducted as part of an ESRC funded project entitled Autonomy, Rights and Children with Special Needs: A New Paradigm? (ES/P002641/1), which ran from 2018 to 2020. In addition, the paper uses findings from an Independent Children’s Rights Impact Assessment which was carried out in summer 2020 with a view to investigating the impact of the emergency measures implemented during the Covid-19 pandemic. Under the terms of the Coronavirus Act 2020, schools across the UK were closed, with widespread implications for children and young people, particularly those with additional support needs. The central aim of this paper is to explore the impact of the emergency measures on the recently enhanced rights of children with ASN, with a particular focus on the rights of children from Gypsy/Traveller backgrounds. I conclude that people living itinerant lives experience long-standing exclusion from mainstream schooling and wider society, and their marginal status has been reinforced during the recent pandemic when children’s human rights have been side-lined.

Engagement without accountability: The role of governments, field experts, and public intellectuals in the context of the covid-19 pandemic

The outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic represented a major shock. In their effort to adapt their responses to the crisis to their own conditions of survival, governments have tended to resort to arguments that limit accountability to the population. Despite the privileged place they are presumed to have within contemporary societies, experts have been displaced from the decision-making processes of governments and delegitimized by the anti-intellectual drift favored by the way in which arguments are presented and debated in social media. At the same time, despite being perceived as capable of offering inside-out evaluations of specific phenomena and therefore capable of distinguishing between truths and big lies (and anything in-between), the role of public intellectuals seems to have been limited. The article analyses the responses of great power governments and regional powers in terms of the discursive practices deployed in the context of the covid-19 crisis, and the capacity of the aforementioned non-institutional actors to confront these discourses. As editors-in-chief, policymakers have felt passionate about war metaphors that have allowed them to deconstruct and make complex subjects accessible, and as such, to ensure a sufficient level of attention and public approval so that the fight against the enemy could begin. In addition, they have prompted the implementation of emergency measures that, in a context of geopolitical confrontation, have allowed them to evade individual responsibilities. Rather than using their knowledge to provide constructive examination of complex issues and make them accessible, so the ones who listen to them can hopefully understand the impact of specific policy preferences and minimize their own losses in the increasingly competitive environment, experts and intellectuals have seen their room for maneuver to influence policy formulations severely limited.

EU Governments Must not Return to Their Dysfunctional Fiscal Rules

Fiscal rules such as the European Stability and Growth Pact and the German debt brake have been suspended in the Covid19-pandemic in order to provide emergency measures and to overcome the crisis. Now, the controversial debate is back again: When should governments return to fiscal rules? Should they return to fiscal rules, at all? This article argues that it is not so much a question whether governments should return to fiscal rules at all, but to which kind of rules they should return. Following the deficit bias argument and the need for fiscal policy coordination in a monetary union some kind of limitation for government debt and some kind of fiscal rules may easily be justified. However, that does not mean that governments should return exactly to the previously existing rules, because these are economically flawed. Recently the argument for reform has become even stronger due to new empirical evidence about the macroeconomic effectivity of fiscal policy, the experience of the dysfunctionality of the existing rules during the Euro crisis and the fact that the cost of public debt has been reduced dramatically because of persistently low if not negative nominal interest rates.

Emergency Law Responses and the Covid-19 Pandemic (Global State of Democracy Thematic Paper 2021)

In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, governments have implemented a variety of extraordinary legal and policy measures to protect lives, mitigate the spread of the virus, and prevent health systems from breaking down. These measures have often included curbing some human rights, restricting travel, shuttering up classrooms, suspending government services, ordering the temporary closure of businesses, controlling or curtailing news reporting, and sometimes delaying elections. To do this, many governments have activated emergency legal frameworks that provide for the assumption of emergency powers by the executive and, in some cases the weakening or setting aside of ordinary democratic checks and balances. It is helpful to understand the different types of laws relied upon (or not) by governments to justify their assumption of emergency powers and their imposition of emergency measures. This paper examines and compares different types of legal bases for emergency powers, built-in safeguards and constraints specific to each type of emergency regime, the factors that may influence choices about which emergency legal response to apply, and the associated advantages and risks

The Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic During Lockdown on the Veterinary Profession in Romania: A Questionnaire-Based Survey

The lockdown period in Romania lasted for 60 days and had the purpose of limiting the spread of SARS-CoV-2 virus outbreak and manage its consequences through emergency measures on many important areas of activity. This study aimed to gather, assess, analyze and disseminate relevant social, economic, and medical aspects on the impact of COVID-19 pandemic during lockdown on the veterinary profession in Romania. A survey was created using an online questionnaire platform, and disseminated. The survey was completed by a total of 409 individuals. A high number of respondents (71.64%; n = 293) felt exposed to medium or high risk of infection with SARS-CoV-2 at their workplace and many (56.97%; n = 233) felt that their professional environment was more stressful than usual during lockdown. Almost all respondents (89.73%; n = 367) declared the implementation of several control measures recommended by FECAVA and FVE (e.g., social distancing, wearing protective equipment, hand washing), but few mentioned the opportunity of remote work or visiting restrictions. Overall, the results show that the impact of lockdown lies directly on four main categories of importance on veterinarian professional's life—human resource, activity management, relationship between veterinarian and authorities, and continuing education.