The Threat of Derogations from International Human Rights Treaties to Democracies Worldwide

Abstract

According to the International Human Rights Law, States can limit the application  of human rights rules to preserve individual and collective interests, such as  public health, for example. The COVID-19 pandemic and its exceptional  circumstances made several States worldwide go further. They decided to  derogate their obligations concerning international human rights rules,  suspending their applicability inside these countries’ territories under the  justification that it is part of the sanitary attempts to address the spread of the  disease. This article intends to show that this decision allows States to skip their  international responsibility to respect human rights instead of guaranteeing  people’s most fundamental rights. The suspension effect brought by a derogation  enlarges the power of governments to create policies and laws to contain the  emergency. However, governments do not need to observe some international  human rights limitations if the derogation lasts. As a result, it allows some States to use the public health emergency brought by the COVID-19 to legitimize  abusive and discriminative legislation, which purpose is to persecute political  opposition and restrict minorities’ rights, for example. Therefore, adopting  derogations in situations in which a simple limitation would be sufficient allows national governments to put their responsibility to follow international human  rights terms and conditions out of the way under the justification of combatting a  health emergency.