Abstract
COVID-19-related controversies concerning the allocation of scarce resources, travel restrictions, and physical distancing norms each raise a foundational question: How should authority, and thus responsibility, over healthcare and public health law and policy be allocated? Each controversy raises principles that support claims by traditional wielders of authority in "federal" countries, like federal and state governments, and less traditional entities, like cities and sub-state nations. No existing principle divides "healthcare and public law and policy" into units that can be allocated in intuitively compelling ways. This leads to puzzles concerning (a) the principles for justifiably allocating "powers" in these domains and (b) whether and how they change during "emergencies." This work motivates the puzzles, explains why resolving them should be part of long-term responses to COVID-19, and outlines some initial COVID-19-related findings that shed light on justifiable authority allocation, emergencies, emergency powers, and the relationships between them.
Highlights
COVID-19-related controversies concerning the allocation of scarce resources, travel restrictions, and physical distancing norms each raise a foundational question: How should authority, and responsibility, over healthcare and public health law and policy be allocated? Each controversy raises principles that support claims by traditional wielders of authority in “federal” countries, like federal and state governments, and less traditional entities, like cities and sub-state nations
The controversies take different forms across the globe, the underlying issues are perfectly general, arising in “federal” countries, like the United States and Canada, and more “centralized” ones, like France and Israel, where all formal powers rest with a single level of government but administrative authority rests with more “local” actors who often have broad discretion to act without close oversight
Puzzles about how to account for prima facie compelling claims by these new entities and which principle(s) best resolve competing claims will remain even if we find out that “coordination” matters most during pandemics
Summary
COVID-19-related controversies concerning the allocation of scarce resources, travel restrictions, and physical distancing norms each raise a foundational question: How should authority, and responsibility, over healthcare and public health law and policy be allocated? Each controversy raises principles that support claims by traditional wielders of authority in “federal” countries, like federal and state governments, and less traditional entities, like cities and sub-state nations.
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