ABSTRACT
This chapter synthesises findings from the analysis of law – and the application of law – during the COVID-19 pandemic in a range of national contexts, and draws lessons to strengthen preparedness for future emergencies. It ventures that states on the spectrum from democracy to autocracy exhibited a wide variety of approaches that defy easy categorisation and challenge pre-existing assumptions about state responses during emergency. Democracies and autocracies proved equally, and unpredictably, vulnerable to the pandemic in terms of both public health outcomes, and the ‘health’ of their institutions and their capacity to adapt and effectively respond to pandemic conditions. The chapter ventures that good governance and public trust have proved inseparable during the COVID-19 pandemic and must be the focus for investment and development. The chapter makes recommendations in respect of legal reform; the use of expertise; inequality; democratic rehabilitation; global and multilevel governance; and building public trust through rational discourse.
