The Unlawful Suspension of Human Rights in the Name of Public Health
Preventing the Abuse of Human Rights During Public Health Emergencies: What You Need to Know
During the COVID-19 pandemic, governments worldwide chose to suspend fundamental human rights under the guise of protecting public health. These decisions were not forced upon them by necessity, but were made unlawfully, without meeting the legal criteria required for declaring a State of Emergency. Measures such as lockdowns, mask mandates, school closures, travel restrictions, and vaccine mandates infringed on our basic freedoms and these actions were clear violations of International Human Rights law.
It’s time to understand how these breaches occurred, why they were unlawful, and how we can prevent similar abuses in future public health crises.
The Four Criteria for a Lawful and Legitimate State of Emergency
A "State of Emergency" allows governments to temporarily suspend certain rights to protect public safety or national security, but this power is tightly regulated under international law. The United Nations' International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) outlines the following four criteria for a state of emergency to be considered lawful and legitimate:
1. Imminent Threat: There must be a genuine, imminent, and extraordinary threat to the nation's survival—such as a natural disaster, armed conflict, or a large-scale public health crisis.
2. Necessity: The suspension of rights must be necessary to address the threat. In other words, the actions taken must be proportionate to the severity of the emergency and the specific goals they aim to achieve.
3. Non-Discrimination: The measures must apply equally to all people and must not target specific groups unfairly.
4. Temporariness: The suspension of rights must be temporary, limited to the duration of the emergency, and subject to regular review to ensure it remains appropriate.
COVID-19 Did Not Meet These Criteria
COVID-19 unequivocally failed to meet any of the four legal criteria required under international human rights law (IHRL) to justify the declaration of a State of Emergency.
First, the pandemic did not present a threat to the life of the nation, as healthcare systems, despite initial concerns, were never overwhelmed, and temporary emergency facilities were often underutilised. Second, while there was a fear of ICU capacity being exceeded, this concern was based on projections rather than actual capacity crises, which could have been addressed through ordinary measures, such as increasing hospital capacity or reallocating resources, as demonstrated in various countries.
Second, COVID-19 did not cause any significant disruption to the functioning of society. Life expectancy, mortality rates, were not negatively affected by the pandemic.
Third, the pandemic was not exceptional in a way that justified the suspension of fundamental rights. Standard public health measures—such as protecting vulnerable populations and expanding healthcare capacity—were more than adequate to manage the crisis. Therefore, the sweeping emergency measures imposed, including lockdowns, business closures, and travel restrictions, were not only unnecessary, but also illegal under IHRL, as they lacked any legitimate basis.
COVID-19 did not meet any threshold for a legitimate State of Emergency, and the subsequent violations of human rights that occurred worldwide were unjustifiable. These actions were not rooted in any true public health crisis, but rather in a politicised abuse of emergency powers that should never have happened.
Your Inalienable Human Rights Cannot Be Suspended
Even during a state of emergency, it is critical to remember that certain human rights are inalienable and cannot be suspended under any circumstances. These include:
The right to life and physical integrity
The right not to be subjected to torture
The right not to be subjected to cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment
The right not to be subjected to medical or scientific experimentation without free and informed consent
These fundamental rights are enshrined in documents like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). According to these instruments, governments may not violate these rights, even in the face of a crisis.
For instance, Article 4 of the ICCPR explicitly prohibits the suspension of rights such as the right to life, freedom from torture, and freedom from slavery—even during a state of emergency. Governments cannot justify blanket actions like forced quarantines or vaccine mandates without a clear, proportionate, and justified reason.
What You Can Do: Educating Yourself and Protecting Your Rights
The World Council for Health has written extensively on this issue, highlighting the risks of misusing states of emergency to infringe upon human rights. Their Legal Brief on Preventing Abuse in States of Emergency provides a detailed look at how the rights of individuals must be protected even during extraordinary times.
Key takeaways:
Governments are bound by international human rights law and must meet specific criteria to declare a state of emergency—criteria that COVID-19 did not meet.
Your inalienable rights—such as the right to life, freedom from torture, inhumane treatment and freedom from being subjected to medical or scientific experimentation—cannot be suspended, even in times of crisis.
The measures taken during COVID-19 were not legally justified, as the pandemic did not meet the criteria for a legitimate state of emergency.
Understanding your rights is the only way to protect them.
For further reading on the legal aspects of human rights during public health emergencies, check out the World Council for Health's Legal Brief.
Brilliant work, here here. Keep up the fight, we are winning.
I do view our inalienable rights as different and much greater than the human rights given to us by "legislation".
No court or state have any authority to tell us what our rights are.
Our inalienable rights are nothing to do with them.
Way back in January, 2020, when the American Civil Liberties Union pretended to care about civil liberties:
What You Need to Know About the Coronavirus Outbreak: A Civil Liberties Perspective
ACLU, January 28, 2020
https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-coronavirus-outbreak-a-civil-liberties-perspective
"As scientists and public health officials in the United States learn more about the virus, and as we all see how bad the outbreak turns out to be, it is important that public policymaking remain firmly centered around science.
Unfortunately, our history of reactions to infectious disease outbreaks suggests that if this outbreak becomes severe, we’re likely to see strong pressure to the contrary. In particular, we can expect three things:
We can expect some to panic.
Unfortunately, there tends to be disproportionate hysteria and exaggerated fear around infectious diseases — especially when they are new. In 2009, the appearance of the H1N1 (aka “swine flu”) virus prompted some to call for measures like closing the U.S.-Mexico border, an enormously disruptive measure that, among other things, would have led to billions of dollars in lost economic activity. The H1N1 turned out to be no worse than a normal strain of the seasonal flu virus. In late 2014, many panicked over the Ebola outbreak ravaging West Africa, including a number of U.S. governors who imposed politically motivated quarantines on health care workers and others returning from West Africa. Those quarantines were completely unjustified by science. (In 2015 the ACLU, the Yale School of Public Health, and Yale Law School released a major report analyzing the response to Ebola.)
...
"...no matter how bad any disease outbreak may get, responding in ways that are not supported by science is never the right thing to do.
We can expect pressure for counterproductive responses.
Most panicky responses to disease outbreaks, according to epidemiologists and other experts, only make things worse. In particular, law enforcement-type approaches to stopping the spread of communicable disease such as forced treatment and large-scale quarantine are, as three preeminent public health experts put it, “generally acknowledged by experts to be either completely ineffective or only potentially marginally effective” in slowing the spread of disease."
Public panic will predictably spark calls for “tough,” even draconian measures that treat the problem like a law enforcement or national security issue rather than a public health matter. We at the ACLU have always acknowledged that civil liberties must sometimes give way when it comes to fighting a communicable disease — but only in ways that are scientifically justified. And the public health community has learned over time that treating sick people like potential enemies only spurs them to “go underground” and avoid the authorities, which exacerbates the spread of disease. The evidence is clear that travel bans and quarantines are not the solution. Also counterproductive are the targeting and stigmatization of vulnerable populations, another historically frequent response to frightening epidemics.
We can expect that Trump will lead the panic, not calm it.
In previous disease scares, Donald Trump has been among the most panicky and scientifically ungrounded public voices in the United States. During the West African Ebola outbreak in 2014-15, he opposed allowing American doctors infected with the disease to be airlifted back to the United States for lifesaving treatment (tweeting, “KEEP THEM OUT OF HERE”). He also called for blocking all air traffic from West Africa.
As one expert advised in 2015, “Officials should avoid unrealistic reassurances or taking unnecessarily stringent measures so as to appear decisive.”"
...
"The job of our political leaders is to solicit and follow the guidance of public health experts in crafting a calm and rational response to an outbreak, to help the public understand the scientific facts of this disease, and to present an honest and mature appraisal of risk and the limits of human power to curb nature. Unfortunately, Trump and his administration have a terrible record when it comes to listening to scientists.
We don’t know how bad this outbreak will be. If this one is not severe, another one probably will be in the future. And the more dangerous an actual outbreak, the more important it is that our authorities respond with cool heads and based on science, and not intrude any more than strictly necessary on people’s civil liberties. "
Way back when CNN pretended to care about social and economic tolls on restrictions and quarantines:
The US coronavirus travel ban could backfire. Here’s how
CNN Health, February 7, 2020
https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/07/health/coronavirus-travel-ban/index.html
“All of the evidence we have indicates that travel restrictions and quarantines directed at individual countries are unlikely to keep the virus out of our borders,” Jennifer Nuzzo, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told lawmakers on Capitol Hill this week. “These measures may exacerbate the epidemic’s social and economic tolls. And can make us less safe."
"There can be major economic consequences
One reason countries may be wary of sharing information: the economic consequences of a travel ban can be devastating.
“It has massive economic implications,” Popescu says."
They can't say they didn't know. Or that they forgot, they were doing the best they could in a difficult situation. They knew. And said so. Until they decided to become the threat to civil liberties and freedom, the economy and lives that they said Trump would. They were right when they said Trump was F'ing up. He was, he did. Big time. When the world (including Australia) needed a US president to say "We have nothing to fear but fear itself," or "We will bear any burden, pay any price for the cause of liberty" we had one who said we needed to ban travel and stay home.
And when he did all of the little tyrants inside nearly every single leader in the once "free" westernized liberal democracies showed their true colors. They decided they'd see his F up...and raise him. They pushed all in on all the tyranny they said Trump would. Which is the only reason that our memory of his handling of plandemic is more favorable for him than our memory of them. Once you let the demon beast of tyranny out of its shackles it's nearly impossible to get it back under control. And the damage it does while it rampages across civilization is incalculable. Australia. New Zealand. UK. Germany. Canada. Liberty and freedom are still reeling. Free speech on life support. Surveillance police state infrastructure built out. WHO pandemic treaty threat a knife at the throat of liberty and freedom, more comprehensive, lessons learned from the totalitarian Beta test that they saw the opportunity in Trump's initial ill-advised travel ban gave them. And they seized it. This is what we are up against. May sanity prevail in the next Trump administration with RFK Jr and others inside his administration. For the US. For Australia. For mankind's sake.