Abstract

The COVID-19 global pandemic brings about a new episode in the multi-layered political, economic and humanitarian crisis affecting Puerto Rico since 2006. The 14-years-long crisis has been marked by the U.S. and P.R. governments' imposition of a permanent state of exception to deal with an economic crisis, bankruptcy, hurricanes, swarms of earthquakes and a pandemic. This paper argues that uses of the state of exception and executive orders created a regime of permission for corruption, state-corporate crimes and human rights violations, while exacerbating the impact of the pandemic, and manufacturing the conditions for further disasters. The paper engages in a sociolegal analysis of the cases of corruption and state-corporate crimes in the procurement of COVID-19 test-kits and medical equipment, and the role of the pharmaceutical corporations in undermining PR's capacity to react to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Highlights

  • On July 11, 2020, while Puerto Rico ( PR)1 recorded its highest-ever seven-day average of new coronavirus cases since the pandemic began,2 Governor Wanda Vázquez told the press that “the increase in COVID-19 cases is not the responsibility of the government, but rather, it is the responsibility of each citizen and business to comply with security protocols”.3 Vázquez scolded Puerto Ricans for not taking the necessary individual measures to avoid contracting and spreading COVID-19, falsely arguing4 that the government and her administration had done everything to address the pandemic, and that it was time to move on with the reopening of the economy

  • This paper shows how in PR, corruption and state-corporate crimes are part of the neoliberal-colonial structure made possible by the internal state of exception

  • The uses of the state of exception and executive orders to manage the COVID-19 pandemic, and its social, health and economic consequences, are embedded in long-standing legal and disaster management practices that I have called the internal state of exception

Read more

Summary

Introduction

P.R. history has been marked by: (1) the intensification of neoliberal policies, such as budgetary cuts, the privatisation and externalisation of public services, low corporate taxation, and high dependence on bonds and debt issuance; (2) the legislation of exceptional laws to deal with the economic crisis and with every other aspect of political life—that is, every governor since 2006 has declared the state of financial emergency and used executive orders to manage the crisis (Atiles 2020); and (3) the exacerbation of the state-corporate criminality endemic of colonial systems These measures led to the bankruptcy of the P.R. government in 2016, when the public debt amounted to $72 billion and the per capita debt burden was $15,637.26. These cases of corruption do not take place in a vacuum, but as this paper has shown, the governmental management of the different disasters affecting PR since 2016 has manufactured a regime of permission that normalised corruption as administrative ethos

Conclusion
Findings
20. See: Census QuickFacts
Full Text
Published version (Free)

Talk to us

Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have

Schedule a call