COVID-19: One year on, human rights remain sidelined

Reflection, mourning, analysis, concern and optimism.

In this auspicious week marking the one-year anniversary of declaring COVID-19 to be a global pandemic there is so much to remember and assess.

Very much top of mind should be to consider whether all that has transpired over the past year has been grounded in recognition that everything, absolutely everything, about the pandemic – its threats (both direct and insidious) to life and health, the many resulting restrictions (travel, work, school, group sizes and more) we have faced (most certainly not all of us equally), the impact on livelihoods (particularly for those of us who have not had the privilege of pivoting to comfortable home offices), and the devastating inequalities (entrenched and systemic, but long denied and ignore) that have been laid bare – is entirely all about human rights. 

Beyond recognizing that human rights are in play, though, is the fundamental question as to whether governments – whether all of us – have committed to pursuing human rights solutions? Are COVID-19 responses going forward within solid human rights frameworks?  And the overarching, existential question that has been posed repeatedly throughout this past year, generally with Zoom screens full of nodding heads: will this now lead to transformative human rights change that lays the ground for a just and sustainable future?

Books will be written.  Week-long conferences will be convened.  Courses will be taught.  Examining all those questions and more.

Much more modestly, here I simply ask whether human rights have been explicitly embraced by governments in Canada to guide and frame their COVID-19 responses?  They have had twelve months to do so.

And the disappointing answer: no, for the most part they have not.

That is not at all to suggest that governments have failed to take action and adopt measures that have been of considerable human rights benefit.  Of course they have.  Frequently and, often, very impressively.  A full-on (if at times chaotic and confused) effort to roll out vaccines, focusing (though unevenly) on vulnerability, is an obvious example.  So too the funding and programming responding to increased levels of domestic violence tied to the pandemic; reduced numbers of people held in immigration detention; and the initiative to provide permanent resident status for refugee claimants who have been working in the healthcare sector during the pandemic (which does need to be expanded).

And politicians have frequently affirmed the importance of human rights in these COVID-times, including early on when then Minister of Foreign Affairs François-Philippe Champagne and Minister of International Development Karina Gould issued a joint statement, directed at the international community, noting that: “Protecting public health and respecting human rights are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they cannot be separated as they go hand in hand toward ensuring the health, safety and security of our communities and our countries.” 

Generous cheques, good intentions, aspirational words, wishful thinking and serendipity are not enough.  Taking a human rights approach requires deliberate and very explicit measures.

What have been missing are concrete and tangible approaches that deliberately adopt human rights principles in keeping with both international and national standards, ensure intersectional analysis and measurement of compliance with those human rights obligations, institute oversight to track implementation, provide public transparency and reporting on human rights results, commit to accountability for human rights failings, and meaningfully involve rights-holders, communities and independent experts at all stages.

That is why, in early days of the pandemic, a wide-ranging group of over 300 Indigenous organizations, civil society groups, former political leaders, academics and others came together in a proposal directed at all levels of government across the country, calling for robust human rights oversight that would encourage adoption of strong human rights measures and guard against intentional or unintended human rights violations.

The proposal was twofold.

At a minimum, governments were urged to give their respective human rights commissions or offices a formal advisory role within their various COVID-19 task forces and working groups.

More substantially the proposal called for the establishment of independent human rights oversight committees to play a key role in scrutinizing, monitoring, analyzing, researching, recommending, and reporting, focused of course on the human rights dimensions of COVID and its fall-out.

The only government to respond in any serious way to the proposal was the federal government.  But after several months of discussion, interest waned by early autumn, and it has gone nowhere since.

It is not too late.  And it would be so valuable.

It would help ensure that the glaring concerns about the racist, discriminatory and gendered impacts of COVID within a range of vulnerable communities are taken up not simply as regrettable social issues but as full-on human rights challenges which require accountable human rights solutions.

It would bring a much-needed human rights take to our international responsibilities as well, very notably Canada’s obligations in ensuring vaccinations are equitably accessible globally.

It could establish a long-overdue and groundbreaking precedent for incorporating explicit human rights frameworks into public policy more generally.

It might offer a model for better coordination among federal, provincial and territorial governments when it comes to ensuring nationwide compliance with our international human rights obligations, a troubling and inexcusable shortcoming frequently decried by UN human rights bodies and experts.

And it would mean that the promise and rhetoric around “building back better” might take human rights seriously.  So much of the injustice that has been exacerbated and exposed by COVID lies in the fact that human rights have generally long been sidelined by governments around the world, including Canada. Taken up when convenient; given lip service frequently; and far too often violated with impunity.

This can be the time to turn that around. There has been so much talk of this being a moment for transformative change.  The first step on that path must be putting the full range of our human rights commitments on the table and making it clear that from this point on, they will lead the way.