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CHAPTER F-4
Border Closures: A Pandemic of
Symbolic Acts in the Time of COVID-19
Steven J. Hoffman* and Patrick Fafard**
Abstract
COVID-19 provoked unprecedented national border closures. Some
countries stopped travel from particular regions, despite evidence
that such closures are ineffective and illegal under the International
Health Regulations (IHRs). Even more countries banned all incoming
travel by non-citizens. It has been suggested that these more restric-
tive total border closures are theoretically effective and arguably per-
missible under international law. Yet a closer analysis reveals that
total border closures are probably still illegal given the IHRs require
countries to adopt less restrictive alternatives when possible, such as
a 14-day quarantine order for incoming travellers. If border closures
are largely ineffective and illegal, then why have at least 142 countries
implemented them? The answer lies in the realities of politics. Even if
governments know the science and law of border closures, they still
feel compelled to enact them because of intense domestic pressure
* Dahdaleh Distinguished Chair in Global Governance and Legal Epidemiology,
and Professor of Global Health, Law, and Political Science at York University,
the Director of the Global Strategy Lab, the Director of the World Health
Organization Collaborating Centre on Global Governance of Antimicrobial
Resistance, and the Scientific Director of the CIHR Institute of Population and
Public Health at the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
** Full Professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the
University of Ottawa.
VULNERABLE
The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19
- Title
- VULNERABLE
- Subtitle
- The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19
- Authors
- Vanessa MacDonnell
- Jane Philpott
- Sophie Thériault
- Sridhar Venkatapuram
- Publisher
- Ottawa Press
- Date
- 2020
- Language
- English
- License
- CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
- ISBN
- 9780776636429
- Size
- 15.2 x 22.8 cm
- Pages
- 648
- Categories
- Coronavirus
- International