In a statement of interpretation on the right to protection of health (Article 11 of the European Social Charter) in times of pandemic, the European Committee of Social Rights has endorsed many measures adopted by states in response to COVID-19.
The Committee has stated that States Parties must ensure that the right to protection of health is given the highest priority in policies, laws and other actions taken in response to a pandemic. First, States Parties must take all necessary emergency measures in a pandemic. This includes adequate implementation of measures to prevent and limit the spread of the virus. Such measures may include, as in the present Covid-19 crisis, testing and tracing, physical distancing and self-isolation, the provision of adequate masks and disinfectant, as well as the imposition of quarantine and ‘lockdown’ arrangements. All such measures must be designed and implemented having regard to the current state of scientific knowledge and in accordance with relevant human rights standards.
The Committee emphasised the need for adequate public health provision and resourcing, including for research, vaccine development and prevention. It also pointed to a range of other social human rights affected by the pandemic, including the right to health and safety at work or the rights of children and older persons, to which authorities must pay attention.
The Committee stated that the right to protection of health includes the right of access to healthcare, and that access to healthcare must be ensured to everyone without discrimination. This implies that healthcare in a pandemic must be effective and affordable to everyone, and that groups at particularly high risk, such as homeless persons, persons living in poverty, older persons, persons with disabilities, persons living in institutions, persons detained in prisons, and persons with an irregular migration status must be adequately protected by the healthcare measures put in place.
Furthermore, historic and ongoing shortcomings in state efforts to secure Charter rights such as the right to housing (Article 31) and the right to freedom from poverty and social exclusion (Article 30) feed directly into the vulnerability of particular social groups in a pandemic. The major impact of a pandemic and of state measures in response to it on employment and labour rights, both individual and collective, should also not be overlooked. People must not be left without minimum means of subsistence due to the lockdowns and lack of economic activity during a pandemic. A further statement of interpretation will address these issues in greater detail.
“In times of pandemic, the protection of the right of health for all must be the primary aim of State policies and measures, because pandemics – and state responses thereto – can also pose significant risks to many other social rights. The European Committee of Social Rights will offer further guidance to states on social rights exigencies in the response to COVID-19. The Committee will scrutinise closely action taken by states in response to the pandemic in terms of their social rights obligations. The questionnaire to states parties to the European Social Charter is already being prepared with this in mind,” declared the Committee’s President Giuseppe Palmisano.
Click here for the Statement of Interpretation of the Committee.