NCHR Occasional Paper Series #13 2020

This paper: COVID-19: Human rights trade-offs, challenges and policy response,  is written by Bård A. Andreassen, Peris S. Jones and Gentian Zyberi, Norwegian Centre for Human Rights, University of Oslo and Yannick Bernardo Joaquim, Agostinho Neto University of Luanda

In the introduction the authors write: The COVID-19 virus pandemic stands out as one of the most devastating global humanitarian and economic crises in living memory, leading to human misery in virtually every country in the world. In the history of pandemics, it is about to become one of the worst pandemics since the Spanish Flu between 1918 and 1919. It has overwhelmed health systems, threatened national economies, social security systems, as well as education and food production (E/C.12/2020/1). As of 5 September 2020, the death toll from COVID-19 was around 870,000 people and around 26.5 million people had been affected. 

The short and long-term impacts of COVID-19 on human rights are huge. There is still a lack of knowledge and uncertainty about how it is affecting countries, and differences among them, as this depends on how authorities and populations react to the pandemic and continue to react in the coming months. Read the whole paper