Blog post archive
Displaying 41 blog posts tagged to coronavirus
March 2021
Why Digital Vaccine Passports are a Bad Idea: the Norwegian Perspective
Expanding the use of Covid-19 digital vaccine passports to domestic purposes would in practice represent a return to the checkpoint permit (in Norwegian ‘passerseddel’, in German “Passierschein”), a form of internal passport. This type of document is associated with authoritarian regimes and with war and conflict, last used in Norway ...
Closed Borders, but Continued Migration?
Passing a year on from the massive closure of borders globally in March 2020 offers an opportunity to reflect on migration, borders and the pandemic. What has been the impact of closed borders on international migration? And what do some impacts look like: seasonal work, remittances, risk and recognition? Taking ...
The Pomp of Popular Constitutional Outrage
The democratic struggle over the Norwegian Covid-19 curfew proposal. Up until a year ago, no one could have anticipated the scope, intensity, and character of the current Norwegian debate on some of the most central civil rights in a democratic society. With the advent of the COVID-19 lockdown and the ...
February 2021
Tech-Based States of Emergency: some key takeaways
The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered the acceleration of pre-existing technological trends. As states introduce new rules and technological solutions to fight the pandemic, it can be tempting to view these technological applications as neutral scientific decisions. However, we must critically examine these decisions because times of crisis set standards which ...
Nordic Noir: National Risk Assessments in Times of Peace and Pandemics
As a result of their criteria for what counts as risks, the national risk assessments of the Nordic countries currently resemble the crime genre of Nordic Noir, where the Nordic societies are rendered in a gloomy but revealing light. By zooming in on potential crises without placing these in a ...
January 2021
National Risk Assessments: a political vaccine against the next disaster?
The COVID-19 pandemic highlights the political potential of National Risk Assessments (NRAs). The consistent focus of European NRAs on the risk of pandemics while public attention was glued to terrorism demonstrates their relevance to the question of how to prevent and prepare for future disasters – be they natural or ...
COVID-19: Towards a Digital Fragmentation of the Right to Education?
COVID-19 lockdowns have had momentous impact on children’s lives worldwide and in particular on the right to education. Save the Children reports that more than 1.6 billion learners globally have faced school closures due to the pandemic, resulting in at least 10 million children not returning to school.[1] Among key international stakeholders, there ...
COVID-19 and the Law: Framing Healthcare Worker Risks as Women’s Rights Violations
Today, public health is ‘delivered by women and led by men’, with a glaring absence of women and nurses at the decision making table.[1] Globally, though women only make up 25% of those in healthcare leadership they make up the majority of healthcare workers (70%) and nurses (90%).[2] This exclusion skews the ...
November 2020
The Coldest Cold Chain: Chilling Effects of Covid-19 Vaccines
After various stretches of lockdowns and the related dire political, social, and economic consequences, the world has welcomed the news that several companies – including Moderna, AstraZeneca and Pfizer – are approaching an effective vaccine for Covid-19. Approximately 200 more are in the pipeline, of which 48 in clinical and 164 in pre-clinical stages of development. While there is ...
COVID-19: A call for people-centered national security strategy in Africa
Humanity has been extraordinarily challenged by the coronavirus with serious and unprecedented impacts on all aspects of human life and the ways states have been functioning and managing public affairs. COVID-19 may either consolidate global solidarity or it may take humanity on a path toward the demise of globalization and ...
Tensions in Nordic Cooperation
The Covid-19 crisis has (re)introduced challenges within and between the Nordic countries, endangering the image of a unitary, happy and cooperative region. The pandemic has highlighted serious challenges with the provision of welfare services –perhaps the welfare state as a whole in the Nordic region, above all in Sweden. ...
October 2020
Public-Private Partnerships during COVID-19: time to ask some questions
To say that the world was not prepared for a pandemic is an understatement. The point was made early on that in order to overcome COVID-19 and make it to the other side, it was “all hands-on deck”. This included individuals, health experts, governments, the private sector and – the ...
Chronicling Smittestopp: Game on. Game over. Blame games.
April 16, 2020, the Norwegian COVID-19 tracking app Smittestopp was launched to great fanfare. The app was presented as crucial to the effort of saving lives and curbing infection rates. September 28 it was finally over, although the post-mortem dissection of the app has been unusually acrimonious for the Norwegian context. ...
Coronavirus Tracking Apps: Normalizing Surveillance During States of Emergency
The global coronavirus pandemic has prompted states to rush to embrace digital surveillance tools such as contact tracing apps as quick fixes and policy responses to the crisis. Understandably, a lot of sophisticated yet questionable new technological solutions have been hurriedly deployed due to the severity of the pandemic. However, ...
May 2020
Norway’s Smittestopp (‘Infection Stop’) App as a Socio-Legal Problem
At the time of writing in early May 2020, Norwegians have in many ways escaped lightly from the first phase of the pandemic. The outbreak was contained at an early stage, the number of cases is low and there have been few deaths. In addition, Norway has money in the ...
Can We Combat Conspiracy Theories about Pandemics?
Did you know that HIV was created by the US government in order to oppress the country’s African American population? Or that researchers engineered the Zika virus to ruin Brazil’s hosting of the 2016 Olympics? Or that coronavirus is linked to the roll-out of 5G mobile networks? This piece is ...
The Colombian Peace Process Effort and COVID-19
On 23rd March 2020 the United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres called for a global ceasefire to combat the coronavirus pandemic. Given the ambition of Colombia’s peace agreement and the strong support of the international community for its implementation, it is worth asking: how is the pandemic affecting the peace ...
COVID-19 in Yemen: Willingness and capacity of conflict parties
This piece is part of our blog series Beyond the COVID Curve. COVID-19 has quickly changed everything from our daily routines, to the policies of governments, to the fortunes of the global economy. How will it continue to shape society and the conditions for peace and conflict globally in the near ...
Afghanistan’s Corona Threat Contagion Knows No Borders
This piece is part of our blog series Beyond the COVID Curve. COVID-19 has quickly changed everything from our daily routines, to the policies of governments, to the fortunes of the global economy. How will it continue to shape society and the conditions for peace and conflict globally in the near ...
April 2020
Drones in the Time of Pandemic: Caution Behind the Hype
The fight against the COVID-19 pandemic has mobilized national and international resources of all types, from funding of medical research to financial rescue plans, and has led to widespread state of emergency declarations. While the approaches adopted all over the world have differed from one country to another, an underlying ...
Women’s Leadership Could Enhance Global Recovery From COVID-19
This piece is part of our blog series Beyond the COVID Curve. COVID-19 has quickly changed everything from our daily routines, to the policies of governments, to the fortunes of the global economy. How will it continue to shape society and the conditions for peace and conflict globally in the near ...
Context matters – Why Africa should tailor its own measures to fight COVID-19
This piece is part of our blog series Beyond the COVID Curve. COVID-19 has quickly changed everything from our daily routines, to the policies of governments, to the fortunes of the global economy. How will it continue to shape society and the conditions for peace and conflict globally in the near ...
The COVID-19 Resettlement Freeze: Towards a Permanent Suspension?
The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered the suspension of international resettlement for refugees. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM), resettlement-related travel will resume as soon as prudence and logistics permit. Meanwhile, individuals and families that were set to go are in limbo for ...
A Global Call: Will COVID-19 bring more peace to the world?
This piece is part of our blog series Beyond the COVID Curve. COVID-19 has quickly changed everything from our daily routines, to the policies of governments, to the fortunes of the global economy. How will it continue to shape society and the conditions for peace and conflict globally in the near ...
Ceasefires in the Time of COVID-19
This piece is part of our blog series Beyond the COVID Curve. COVID-19 has quickly changed everything from our daily routines, to the policies of governments, to the fortunes of the global economy. How will it continue to shape society and the conditions for peace and conflict globally in the near ...
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