Page - 555 - in VULNERABLE - The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19

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.