Governmental policies to fight pandemics: the boundaries of legitimate limitations on fundamental freedoms

This work is the outcome of a research carried out within the 2022 General Congress of the Académie Internationale de Droit Comparé, where I acted as General Rapporteur on the topic of legal reactions to the Covid-19 emergency. Based on several country-reports submitted by scholars from all over the world, the comparative analysis starts by acknowledging the general features of the pandemic emergency, and then is divided into two main parts that address, respectively, the use of emergency clauses (both at the international/supranational and at the domestic level), and the restrictions on rights and freedoms for the sake of public health. In this latter regard, the work differentiates between what are called “the most common casualties” of the pandemic (i.e., those rights and freedoms whose limitation was essential to fight the virus, such as freedom of movement and freedom of gathering) and other rights and freedoms that where restricted as an inevitable consequence of “main” measures (e.g., the right to vote, information and communication rights, LGBTQI+ rights, etc.). The crucial aim of this work is to build a taxonomy of legal reactions to Covid-19 pandemic and its consequences on human rights and personal freedoms, even in the light of courts’ decisions. The conclusions of the analysis draw some “lessons” from how the pandemic was addressed by countries from all over the world, which could be useful in the fight against other, potentially forthcoming global emergencies as Covid-19 was.