State of Emergency and Legal Regulation of Crisis Management Caused by the Covid Pandemic

Abstract

The study was carried out within the framework of the study “Problems of protection of human health and other rights under the conditions of the Covid-19 pandemic and international legal guarantees” funded by the International University of Georgia - GIU.

In the course of the research, the legislative changes introduced at the national and international level during the Covid pandemic as well as their implementation process in the context of the protection of human rights and their implementation have been analyzed. Since the World Health Organization declared a global pandemic on March 11, 2020, countries around the world have mostly resorted to special measures to stop the spread of the Covid pandemic.

Though the pandemic has forced the European countries to apply for the various means and to carry out the different actions, it should be underlined that the majority of the European countries did not announce the state of emergency, and they coped with this great challenge based upon the legislation regulating ordinary (common) situation. It is a fact that the reason for declaring the state of emergency in Georgia was not the danger of internal uncontrolled spread of Coronavirus, but the threat of absence of the proper legal base in the country, which would have enabled the state to establish the restrictions / limitations of the human rights compliant to the epidemiological standing.

Within the framework of the research, the analysis will be made on the legal bases of the restrictions introduced by the state in the conditions of the pandemic, which will help in the future to establish the response mechanisms of the states to solve similar emergency situations in such a way as to exclude confusion, chaos and inconsistent actions in crisis conditions.

Key words: Covid Pandemic. Legal arrangement. State of emergency.