The Council of Europe’s Directorate General Human Rights and Rule of Law will co-chair an online debate on human rights under quarantine at the special digital session of the St Petersburg Legal Forum on 10 April 2020.
The ongoing sanitary catastrophe and the measures taken by states in response affect public health, economy, social fabric, rights and liberties, including the way our life is regulated by law. The viability of our legal systems depends on their capacity to shape an effective response to the pandemic without undermining our common values enshrined in national constitutions and international treaties. Issues to be debated include:
- How to ensure that states’ legitimate duty to protect life of the nation does not turn into arbitrariness and disproportionate interference with our lives?
- To what extent should the state’s primary responsibility for containing the crisis be checked by other states’ peer review?
- How does the crisis change the role of international institutions in assisting states and coordinating their responses to the catastrophe ?
The debate will be preceded by a high-level plenary session attended online by Council of Europe Secretary General Marija Pejčinović Burić and Vice-President of the Russian Federation’s Security Council Dmitriy Medvedev.
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