Abstract
Communication by public authorities during a crisis situation is an essential and indispensable part of any response to a situation that may threaten both life and property. In the online connected world possibilities for such communication have grown further, in particular with the opportunity that social media presents. As a consequence, communication strategies have become a key plank of responses to crises ranging from epidemics to terrorism to natural disaster. Such strategies involve a range of innovative practices on social media. Whilst being able to bring about positive effects, they can also bring about a range of harmful unintended side effects. This include economic harms produced by incorrect information and a range of social harms that can be fuelled by myths and rumours, worsening negative phenomena such as stigmatisation and discrimination. Given the potential for such harms, one might expect that affected or potentially affected individuals would be able to challenge such measures before courts or administrative tribunals. As this paper demonstrates however this is not the case. More often than not seemingly applicable legal approaches are unlikely to be able to engage such methods. This is often because such measures represent activities that are purely expressive in nature and therefore not capable of imposing any binding legal or corporeal changes on individuals. Whilst some forms of soft law may pose requirements for public officials involved in such activities (e.g. codes of conduct or of professional ethics), they are not likely to offer potentially harmed individuals the chance to to challenge particular communication strategies before courts or legal tribunals. The result is that public authorities largely have a free reign to communicate how they wish and do not have to have to comply with a range of requirements (e.g. relating to form and substantive) content) that would in general apply to most forms of official administrative act.
Highlights
Communication is a critical part of any organised response to a crisis situation, whether the crisis be a natural disaster, an epidemic or a major terrorist attack.[1]
Quinn Life Sciences, Society and Policy (2018) 14:4 any effort at crisis response, most crises see criticism of the communication strategy employed. Such criticism may be inter alia because the information is incorrect,[3] that the form in which it was made was not suitable or that is caused unneeded harms to certain individuals or groups.[4]. The possibility for such harms to be created by crisis communication gives rise to the question as to what options potentially affected individuals or groups may have in trying halt, alter or seek remedial measures
Under most frameworks the right to life has not been interpreted as compelling public authorities to make decisions in one way or another concerning the allocation of funding to particular healthcare expenditure, even where such decisions may have involved increased risks of mortality for certain groups suffering from certain conditions
Summary
Communication is a critical part of any organised response to a crisis situation, whether the crisis be a natural disaster, an epidemic or a major terrorist attack.[1]. Under most frameworks (including the ECHR) the right to life has not been interpreted as compelling public authorities to make decisions in one way or another concerning the allocation of funding to particular healthcare expenditure, even where such decisions may have involved increased risks of mortality for certain groups suffering from certain conditions Given these factors the possibility for individual claimants to make use of this right in situations where they feel aggrieved or harmed by certain communication policies appears limited, especially given that it may be difficult to demonstrate a threat to life from such practices. Once again it is unlikely to envisage individuals being able to use such case law to challenge generalised messages that do not make mention of specific individuals
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