COVID-19 Pandemic And The Response Of International Law

Backgrounder COVID-19 pandemic has become an existential crisis apart from being a health, social and economic crisis. While eventually China did share 2019-nCoV's genetic sequence shortly after WHO announced the outbreak as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on 30 January, 2020, it has not been forthcoming with additional information so vital to understand the pattern of virus mutation and its transmissibility. C. International Health Law International Health Law or more popularly, Global Health Law is primarily anchored in International Health Regulations that focus on 'infectious diseases' and the WHO's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, 1969 that focus on 'chronic diseases' but also draws elements from International environmental law, International humanitarian and human rights law, International trade and labour law, international laws relating to arms control, et.al. Finally, a claim can be made that China has defeated the object and purpose of the WHO Constitution which as per Article 1 is 'the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of health' based upon the obligation under general international law not to defeat the object and purpose of a treaty as per Article 18 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties D. Draft Articles on State Responsibility There are certain scholars who assert that a careful analysis of factual circumstances lead one to the inevitable conclusion that conduct of China is wrongful and violated international law, in particular, Draft Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts, 2001 and that injured states can demand reparation for the injury caused by internationally wrongful act of china. In the spread of COVID-19 pandemic, responsibility emanates from the local Wuhan authorities to the Chinese central governments which encompass all the State organs whose alleged wrongful conducts could be attributable to China.