The public law challenges of COVID-19 III

The COVID19 pandemic has impacted all economies around the world, especially the most unequal ones, such as Latin America, worsening structural socio-economic problems. The unprecedented state intervention triggered the debates to redefine the agenda of the states in their role of guaranteeing human rights. Furthermore, the United Nations ECLAC launched the proposal of Universal Basic Income (IBU) as an alternative for tackling structural problems in Latin America and meeting the goals of the 2030 Agenda. In this paper I analyse the emergency responses during the COVID19 pandemic and their impact on the vulnerable sectors, adding a closer look at the Argentine case. I then explore the proposal for an “Emergency Basic Income“ for the region launched by ECLAC in 2020, and its proposal for a permanent UBI, in the framework of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Finally, I offer a reading of the context and challenges for the implementation of a policy such as the IBU in the region.

Considering legal realism, the sociological theory of law intends to enable institutions of justice to understand social facts more fully and wisely. In this way, the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic forced authorities to design and provide an implementation of public health policies that goes beyond formal justice. By defining public interest according to the commitment to substantive justice, there was the development of a responsive law model in the public health system to consider social facts to consolidate a true organizational culture regulation in the public health system.In light of regulatory law, what is the role of the State in risk management in a pandemic? Faced with this question, Cass R. Sunstein published a collection of opinion articles in prominent American newspapers to debate the application of legal and ethical principles in the American political arena and the subsequent formulation and monitoring of public harm reduction policies. As long as Law becomes more open and flexible, the legal defense of public causes keeps in the political arena and also might be sensitive to social inequalities.The justification of this article permeates the importance of the discussions around public policies on the control of the coronavirus pandemic through the adoption of social distancing,vaccination, and harm reduction measures in democratic countries. So, this study wants to settle the legal guidelines in public policies that start from the observation of reality to formulate a diagnosis of the real functioning of legal institutions in light of social facts and participatory democracy. From the coronavirus pandemic, we seek to think about the regulatory system, regulatory agencies, and their efficiency, as well as rational and democratic state institutions in juridical-sociological research qualitative partially exploratory.

The present paper aims to understand the phenomenon of the judicialization of science and how it is manifested in the discussion held in 2020 in the Brazilian Federal Supreme Court on the parameters of public action and accountability of public agents for the administrative measures adopted in the response to the health emergency resulting from the covid-19 pandemic. Also the paper seeks to understand the importance of the formation of scientific capital for the understanding of the judicialization of science, the formation and interpretation of the rules issued to support the fight against the pandemic and its application by Brazilian Federal Supreme Court rulings, establishing an exploratory analysis of the interactions between scientific capital and normativity, and its importance to assess the legitimacy of sanitary administrative measures adopted and criteria for the accountability of public managers in the Brazilian context

The Covid-19 health emergency has placed special demands on legal scholars, particularly on those based in the Global South. Brazil is one of the epicenters of the pandemic, with over 650,000 deaths as of March 2022. Our narrative emerges from the duality of our positions amidst a national tragedy—we are both survivors of the collective threat of a would-be autocrat and a Covid-19 denialist government and witnesses to how our pre-existing privileges put us in a position of readiness ‘to speak truth to power'. Speaking truth to power means not only to exercise an independent spirit of analysis and judgment of power, but also to interpellate power openly about its wrongdoings. We have positioned ourselves as advocates and litigators for those most affected by the pandemic, particularly vulnerable women. In this essay, we share one of our key initiatives during the pandemic—a constitutional lawsuit to demand the right of pregnant and postpartum people to access Covid-19 vaccines.

In response to extreme conditions, extraordinary powers, allowing for actions beyond any set up legal order, are assumed by a government in the form of a state of exception. The parallels drawn between the state of exception and the concept of necessity lead theorist Agamben to begin questioning this relationship. The reliance on the concept of necessity appears to allow for actions beyond the premise of a set up legal order based upon a subjective determination. The 1914 Swiss Vollmachtenregime and the Swiss Epidemics Act use during the Coronavirus outbreak both provide for insights into understanding this reliance. The main aim of this paper will be to present how Agamben questions this parallel relationship. The insights from the Swiss political reality allow this paper to pursue its second aim and uncover the degree to which the concept of necessity is the basis of the state of exception. The final aim will be to assess whether these parallels may in fact undermine a legal order.