1st Edition
Pandemics, Public Health, and the Regulation of Borders Lessons from COVID-19
This book examines how the COVID-19 pandemic has engendered a new and challenging environment in which borders drawn around people, places, and social structures have hardened and new ones have emerged.
Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, borders closed or became unwelcoming at the international, national, sub-national, and local levels. Debate persists as to whether those countries and territories that tightly managed their borders, like New Zealand, Australia, or Hong Kong, got it ‘right’ compared to those that did not. Without doubt, a majority of those who suffered and died throughout the pandemic have been those from vulnerable populations. Yet on the other hand, efforts taken to manage the spread of the disease, such as through border management, have also disproportionately affected those who are most vulnerable. How then is the right balance to be struck, acknowledging, too, the economic and other imperatives that may dissuade governments from taking public health steps? This book considers how international organizations, countries, and institutions within those countries should conceive of, and manage, borders as the world continues to struggle with COVID-19 and prepares for the next pandemic. Engaging a range of international, and sub-national, examples, the book thematizes the main issues at stake in the control and management of borders in the interests of public health.
This book will be of considerable interest to academics in the fields of health law, anthropology, economics, history, medicine, public health, and political science, as well as policymakers and public health planners at national and sub-national levels.
About the Contributors x
Acknowledgements xxiv
Borders, Boundaries, and Pandemics: Preface xxvi
Lawrence O. Gostin and Marie-Eve Sylvestre
PART I
Introduction 1
1 Introduction: Borders, Boundaries, and Pandemics 3
Colleen M. Flood, Y.Y. Brandon Chen, Raywat Deonandan, Sam Halabi and Sophie Theriault
PART II
Histories, Contests, and Communication of Borders as Public Health Tools 13
2 The Essential Art of Communication about Balance in Border Closures 15
Raywat Deonandan
3 The Wolf and the Sheepfold: Borders, Containment, and Contested Discourses of Public Health in the Great Influenza Pandemic Era 26
Esyllt W. Jones
4 Bordering and the Fallacy of Disease Directionality: Ebola, SARS-CoV-2 and Africa’s Confidence Deficit with Global Public Health 36
Chidi Oguamanam
5 Towards Reimagining the IHR Article 43
on Travel Restrictions 47
Lisa Forman and Roojin Habibi
PART III
Border and Mobility Restrictions as Public Health Tools within Regional and National Boundaries 63
6 Management of the European Union’s (Internal and External) Borders during the COVID-19 Pandemic 65
Tamara Hervey, Alexandra Fyfe and Vincent Delhomme
7 Public Health Evidence for Provincial Border Management 79
Brenda J. Wilson
8 First Nations Jurisdiction, COVID-19, and the Implications of Spatial Restrictions in a Settler Colonial Context 89
Sophie Thériault, Eva Ottawa, and Florence Robert
PART IV
Border Measures in Comparative Perspective 101
9 Border Controls as Part of Aotearoa New Zealand’s Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic 103
Siouxsie Wiles
10 Borders within Borders within Borders: A Legitimate
Approach to Controlling the First Two Years of the
SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic in Australia 116
Stephen Duckett
11 The United States Response to COVID-19: A Patchwork of Border Regulations 129
Katherine Ginsbach
12 Brazilian Discriminatory Border Control Policy Based on “Health Restrictions” during COVID-19 Pandemic 142
Fernando Aith
PART V
Border Controls, Migrants, and Refugees 155
13 Pandemic Pathways to Permanent Residence 157
Audrey Macklin
14 Spouses of the Pandemic: Data, Racism, and Mental Health 166
Wei William (“Will”) Tao
PART VI
Vaccine Passports: Civil Liberties, Human Rights, and Public Health 181
15 Vaccine Refusals and Freedom of Religion: A Moving Target in a Pandemic Age 183
Carissima Mathen
16 A Brief History of the Science of Vaccine Passports and What the Future Holds 192
Kumanan Wilson
17 Rights Discourse and Canadian Debate Over Vaccine Passports 202
Bryan Thomas
18 Mobility Restrictions, Human Rights, and the Legal Test of Proportionality 213
Jeff King
PART VII
Vaccine Passports: Privacy Claims and Technology Fixes and Failures 229
19 Pandemic-Fighting Technologies? Lessons from COVID-19 for the Pandemics of the Future 231
Vivek Krishnamurthy and Myka Kollmann
20 Verification Theatre at Borders and in Pockets 240
Michael Veale
PART VIII
Bounded Vulnerabilities: Long-Term Care, Prisons, Psychiatric Care Institutions, and Homelessness 253
21 The Paradox of Protecting the Vulnerable: An Analysis of the Canadian Public Discourse on Older Adults during the COVID-19 Pandemic 255
Martine Lagace, Caroline D. Bergeron,Tracey O’Sullivan, Samantha Oostlander,Pascale Dangoisse, Amelie Doucet, and Philippe Rodrigue-Rouleau
22 Of Governmental Priorities, Human Rights, and Social Control: Prison Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic 264
Adelina Iftene
23 Extending the Boundaries of the Psychiatric Hospital: The Use and Misuse of Psychiatric Coercion during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Quebec and Ontario 273
Emmanuelle Bernheim
24 Punishing Mobility: Curfews and Homelessness in Quebec during the COVID-19 Pandemic 281
Veronique Fortin and Celine Bellot
PART IX
Access to Services, Care, and Medical Necessities 291
25 Bodies across Borders: A History of Cross-Border Travel for Abortion Services in Poland and Canada 293
Christabelle Sethna and Krystyna Dzwonkowska-Godula
26 Borders Drawn across Bodies: Advocating for Maternal Health in Times of Crisis 307
Sarah J. Lazin
27 Keeping Border Restrictions Light Enough to Travel: A Humanitarian Perspective on Canada’s Border Control Measures during COVID-19 319
Jason W. Nickerson and Joseph Belliveau
28 “Where You Live Shouldn’t Determine Whether You Live”: Canada and the Line between Rhetoric and Reality in Global COVID-19 Vaccine Equity 328
Adam R. Houston
PART X
Borders, Boundaries, and the Future of Global Health Law 339
29 Cross-Border Mobility of Persons and Goods during Pandemics: Exposing Normative Duality in International Law 341
Pedro A. Villarreal
30 Modelling Approaches to Borders, Geography, and Infectious Diseases 352
David Fisman
31 Advancing a Risk-Based Approach to Border Management during Public Health Emergencies of International Concern: Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic 365
Kelley Lee, Julianne Piper, and Jennifer Fang
32 Global Health Law: Overcoming the Shortfall in Human Resources 376
Tim G. Evans and Priyanka Saksena
33 Conceptual and Tangible Borders under a Revised International Health Regulations or New International Pandemic Agreement 388
Sam Halabi
Index 399
Biography
Colleen M. Flood is Dean of the Faculty of Law at Queen’s University, Canada.
Y.Y. Brandon Chen is Associate Professor at the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Law (Common Law Section), Canada.
Raywat Deonandan is Epidemiologist and Associate Professor with the Interdisciplinary School of Health Sciences at the University of Ottawa, Canada.
Sam Halabi is Professor at the Georgetown University School of Health and Co-Director of the Center for Transformational Health Law at the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law.
Sophie Thériault is Full Professor in the Faculty of Law (Civil Law Section) at the University of Ottawa, Canada.
