Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic is an event of public health of international concern with extraordinary negative impacts on international community. Some legal issues have been raised by someone who accused Chinese failing to cooperate with World Health Organization and other countries to prevent spread of coronavirus over the world. In fact, several cases have been filed in the federal courts of the United States. This situation makes necessary for legal response. Against theses backgrounds, this paper argues the merits to respond such accusations in accordance with the international laws, focusing on three legal issues, first, to distinguish the general obligations of international cooperation for global health under Constitution of World Health Organization from the special obligations in fighting COVID-19 according to International Health Regulation, secondly, to demonstrate that China did not break these obligations based on the public records or disclosed evidences, and finally, to discuss the litigations in the United States against China from the perspectives of customary international law of the jurisdictional immunity of a state from another state. The method used by this paper is mainly normative analysis to interpret the relevant treaties and to review the cases of international and domestic courts in order to clarify what are the international obligations imposed on China in combating COVID-19 and what are the customary international laws related to the domestic jurisdiction on any cases against China. The conclusion of this paper is that China has not violated any international health laws and the customary international law of sovereignty immunity does not permit any domestic jurisdiction in this regard.
Highlights
COVID-19 was first identified as the deadly novel coronavirus in China last January
Chinese government made great efforts to cooperated with the World Health Organization (WHO or Organization) for control of the coronavirus spreading over China and abroad, including the notification to WHO within 24 hours about the cases of pneumonia unknown etiology detected in Wuhan City,1 the decision of lockdown measures in Wuhan City on 23 January 2020 to contain the spread of coronavirus and to stop Chinese transboundary travel during the traditional lunar new year
The research is intended to make the preliminary arguments for merits with the clarification of relevant conventional or customary international laws in respects of state responsibility and state immunity related to the COVID-19 pandemic
Summary
COVID-19 was first identified as the deadly novel coronavirus in China last January. Chinese government made great efforts to cooperated with the World Health Organization (WHO or Organization) for control of the coronavirus spreading over China and abroad, including the notification to WHO within 24 hours about the cases of pneumonia unknown etiology (unknown cause) detected in Wuhan City, the decision of lockdown measures in Wuhan City on 23 January 2020 to contain the spread of coronavirus and to stop Chinese transboundary travel during the traditional lunar new year. 2 WHO has disclosed the report of joint WHO-China study on the origins of COVID-19, which makes clear that “a laboratory origin of the pandemic was considered to be extremely unlikely”, and provides the concluding remarks that “the team commended the engagement of all professionals who had spent long hours analysing very large quantities of data to support its work. It is obviously distinct that, on one hand, the general obligations under the WHO Constitution are regular for the Member States to make financial contribution, to submit the annual reports on domestic health situation, statistics and legislations, and on another hand, the obligations of implementation specified by the IHR are related to any events that may constitute a public health emergency of international concern with mandatory surveillance, notification, information-sharing, consultation, verification and response. The term “report annually” in its context of the chapter 14 “reports submitted by states” means that it is one of the annual reports to meet the WHO objective for “all people of the highest possible level of health” This obligation of annual report is different from the obligation of notification under the Article 6 of the IHR, which in its context of the part 2 “information and public health response” means that “all events which may constitute a public health emergency of international concern” within a Member’s territory shall be notified to WHO as early as possible for the purpose “to prevent, protect against, control and provide health response to the international spread of disease”. The affordable procedure of dispute settlement under the Regulation is intended to resolve the problems or disputes arising from particular obligations to prevent international spread of disease by parties themselves or by the WHO Director-General, and even by the optional compulsory arbitration but not by adjudication of the ICJ. These conventional differences should not be confused by any international lawyers
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