Abstract
This Article provides an analytical framework designed to assess whether a public health emergency constitutes a threat to international peace and security. In so doing, it challenges a common observation that the UN Security Council (UNSC) is largely free to frame public health issues of global concern as threats to international security. This Article instead argues that, for legitimacy and compliance purposes, the UNSC needs to establish that several determining criteria have been met before it can characterize a public health crisis as a threat to international security. Against this backdrop, this Article discusses a number of parameters which can be relied on in deciding whether or not to turn a public health event such as a global pandemic into a security issue at the international level. It then applies these determining criteria to the COVID-19 crisis to show that the UNSC, by failing to promptly and adequately react, betrayed its goal. This Article accordingly argues for a more coherent decision-making practice and rigorous reasoning of the UNSC. Such a more focused approach presupposes that certain qualifying criteria must be met to normatively justify and legitimize the characterization of a public health crisis as a threat to international security, thus enhancing the perceived fairness of the UNSC's decisions.
Recommended Citation
Gregor Maučec,
Qualifying a Public Health Emergency as "A Threat to International Peace and Security" and COVID-19: The Practice of the UN Security Council Revisited,
33 Fla. J. Int'l L.
(2021).
Available at: https://scholarship.law.ufl.edu/fjil/vol33/iss1/1