Teaching Resources on COVID-19 and Human Rights
With COVID-19 upending our semester plans and creating instability for many students, it’s hard to avoid the issue in our classrooms. But like other emergencies and disasters before it, COVID-19 opens a window onto the deep inequalities and structural deficiencies in our society. For law profs teaching a human rights course as the COVID-19 pandemic unfolds, here are a few resources that can help ground your (very likely on-line) discussions of the human rights impacts of this pandemic:
Legal analyses of human rights and COVID-19 responses:
Amnesty International, https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/pol30/1967/2020/en/
Impacts on particular populations:
Human Rights Watch, re. people in prison, https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/03/12/us-covid-19-threatens-people-behind-bars#
Business & Human Rights Resource Center, re. precarious workers, https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/covid-19-%E2%80%93-time-for- governments-brands-and-employers-to-protect-supply-chain-and-precarious-workers-from-hardship-and-infection
Operationalizing Human Rights at the Provincial Level:
Ontario Human Rights Commission Statement on COVID-19, http://ohrc.on.ca/en/news_centre/ohrc-policy-statement-covid-19-pandemic
Statement from UN Human Rights Experts:
COVID-19: States should not abuse emergency measures to suppress human rights – UN experts, https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=25722&LangID=E
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