Pandemic Review: Rights and Accountability in COVID-19

The UK's response to COVID-19 significantly limits rights through a combination of law, regulation, guidance, and policing practice emanating from Westminster, devolved administrations, and police forces. While the UK's human rights obligation to protect the right to life mandates an effective response to the pandemic, the nature and extent of that response carries the risk that rights will permanently be undermined. Review of the pandemic response is key to limiting that risk. It is a critical component of ensuring accountability and legitimacy, which in turn underpins public trust and compliance with pandemic regulations. In order to be effective, review must (i) recognise the wide range of rights-related impacts of the response, (ii) engage substantively with questions of disproportionate impact by characteristics such as age, gender, race, ethnicity, and socio-economic status, and (iii) be able to influence government responses by holding the state accountable for rights (non-) compliance and insisting that rights-limitations are temporary, proportionate, and fully rolled back once no longer necessary. This project will monitor and strengthen pandemic review by establishing a 'COVID-19 review observatory', which will document and analyse the extent, nature and effectiveness of (legal and political) review of the impact on rights. It will produce 'report cards' for pandemic reviews, and feed back to and in to review mechanisms in order to strengthen their accountability functions. The project will thus strengthen review mechanisms' contribution to state accountability and the restoration of rights normalcy 'after COVID-19'.