ABSTRACT
Compliance with human rights generates popular legitimacy and trust, legality and legal certainty and favourable effects for the economy. Crucially, it saves lives when combating a lethal pandemic such as COVID-19. Comprehensive, structured and evidence-based assessment of responses for their conformity with human rights is difficult but possible. This chapter presents a structured assessment model and the outcome from a piloting exercise in respect of 17 countries. The pilot study supports the conclusion that strong human rights performance in respect of any category of human rights entails and requires general compliance across all categories of human rights. This reflects the principle of the interdependence and indivisibility of all human rights. The experiences gained during COVID-19 will provide a basis for producing a generalisable model that can be adapted to future pandemics, as a self-assessment tool in addressing national strategies. Importantly, it would generate interaction between different epistemic communities such as epidemiologists, economists, sociologists and psychologists, lawyers and other experts on regulation, and human rights experts.
