COVID-19's Challenges to Human Rights

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic, in the triple crisis it triggered – health, economic and social – has caused the greatest setback in the implementation of Human Rights since its Universal Declaration, in 1948. This assessment stems from its amplitude and the depth of the reversion in the realization of human rights that is currently verified on three levels, corresponding, in a generic way, to the three generations of rights: on the individual level, contemplating civil and political rights; in the social, economic and social rights; and overall, collective ownership rights. We will successively focus on these different plans, considering some of the most common and impactful sanitary measures implemented in each one and which constitute human rights violations, reflecting on the possible conditions for the ethical legitimacy of the adopted measures. At the same time, it is important to consider that the sanitary measures implemented have not only negatively affected the due respect for Human Rights, but have also given rise to areas of conflict between different rights, in relation to which it is not ethically legitimate to opt for some to the detriment of others. It is argued that it is necessary to move towards a new approach to human rights, highlighting their complementarity and sustainability of duties – in an integrated model – which, in turn, should contribute to the articulation of all rights and their respective fulfillment.