The fostering of human rights and the protection of national security are often viewed as two conflicted intentions in policymaking (1). The Universal Declaration of Human Rights(UDHR) announced in 1948 established 30 equal rights and freedoms to all individuals in the world despite their gender, race, or nationality (2). Article 3 of the UDHR states ‘everyone has the right to life liberty and security of person’ yet this vague article failed to recognise the trade off between civil liberties and national securities.
When a state of emergency arises and regulations are rushed to be constructed under limited time, human rights are often overlooked or present obstacles in the process. President Bush’s speech on US national security strategy in 2002 states a ‘commitment to protecting basic human rights however in the same document he also clarified that ‘defending our Nation against its enemies is the first and fundamental commitment of the Federal Government.’, prioritising national security over individual rights. Wilson suggests that the priority of security over individual liberty can be compared with the mandatory airport security measures, which ‘involve systematic interference with the liberty of those who have done nothing to deserve such interference to their human rights (3). Yet, to ensure safe travels for all passengers in the airport, specific privacy rights are neglected. Although this concept of sacrificing an individual’s human rights for the good of a larger population makes sense logically, this concept raises questions on the degree of human rights that could be sacrificed for the general good and what degree of general good can demand the sacrifice of individual rights?
In the example mention by Wilson where mandatory airport security allows border security to inspect the contents of the passenger’s luggage and carry-on bags, which offends the passenger’s right to privacy to an extent, I would argue is acceptable due to a few reasons. Firstly, all passengers arriving at the airport are aware of the security measures. Secondly, the information obtained from the passengers will not be stored by any department. Lastly, the security procedure will not affect or influence the life of the passengers significantly. The lockdown, mask mandates, location tracking, and other measures adopted by many governments worldwide seem to exceed the population’s acceptable degree of human rights violations. Various protests held against mask mandates and lockdown measures employed by governments as a measure for lowering the infection rate of COVID -19 worldwide suggest a sense of resistance to such policies (4).
However, as Covid 19 is classified as a public health emergency different set of laws will be applied. In 2007 after the SARS pandemic in China, the Emergency Response Law of the People’s Republic of China was issued by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress. Article 49 of this law states ‘Controlling promptly the danger sources, marking the danger areas, blockading the dangerous places, demarcating the cordoned areas, implementing traffic controls and taking other control measures can be justified in the case of an emergency. The ‘control measures’ is defined by the 4th cause of article 49 as ‘shutting down or restricting the use of relevant places, terminating the activities with a high density of people or production or business operation activities likely to cause the expansion of damage, and taking other protective measures.’ (5) With the adoption of specific laws in encountering public health emergency, it is clear that sacrificing human rights are necessary when encountering emergencies.
Reference
- Burke – White, W., (2004) Human Rights and National Security The Strategic Correlation.Law.upenn.edu.https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/faculty_scholarship/960/
- org.uk.( 2017). What is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?. [online] Available at: <https://www.amnesty.org.uk/universal-declaration-human-rights-UDHR>
- Wilson J. J Med Ethics 2016;42:367–375.
- com.au. 2021. Children encouraged to burn face masks in US demonstration against virus rules. [online] Available at: <https://www.9news.com.au/world/coronavirus-us-protesters-burn-face-masks-in-idaho/4e53d127-b069-4f32-9a4d-b46320b7dbcc>
- Zhang, Y., 2020. China’s anti-epidemic efforts protect basic human rights – Global Times. [online] Globaltimes.cn. Available at: <https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1179603.shtml> ].