Disaster Law Commons^™

Climate Security Insights From The Covid-19 Response, Mark Nevitt

Indiana Law Journal

The climate change crisis and COVID-19 crisis are both complex collective action problems. Neither the coronavirus nor greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions respect political borders. Both impose an opportunity cost that penalizes inaction. They are also increasingly understood as nontraditional, novel security threats. Indeed, COVID-19’s human cost is staggering, with American lives lost vastly exceeding those lost in recent armed conflicts. And climate change is both a threat accelerant and a catalyst for conflict—a characterization reinforced in several climate-security reports. To counter COVID-19, the President embraced martial language, stating that he will employ a “wartime footing” to “defeat the virus.” Perhaps …

Telemedicine Across Borders: Entrenched Issues Exposed By Covid-19, Richmond B. Wrinkle

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Debt Expansion As "Relief And Rescue" At The Time Of The Covid-19 Pandemic: Insights From The Legal Theory Of Finance, Iris Hse-Yu Chiu, Andreas Kokkinis, Andrea Miglionico

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

In Section II, we discuss the relief and rescue policies in the US, UK, and EU and show how they have been advanced by legal elasticity in suspensions from normal private and regulatory law. Crucially, such legal elasticity is intended to facilitate an increased debt burden for corporations and households as a means of relief and rescue. We argue that this policy choice, which is startlingly similar in these developed jurisdictions, has been influenced by the contexts of financialization in these jurisdictions and the perception of temporary duration by policy makers. However, there is a need to critically interrogate the …

Medical Volunteers During Pandemics, Disasters, And Other Emergencies: Management Best Practices, John I. Winn, Seth Chatfield, Kevin H. Govern

Seattle Journal of Technology, Environmental, & Innovation Law

How best to utilize volunteers^[1] during medical emergencies is an essential part of hospital compliance planning. Onboarding recruited and spontaneous volunteers during crisis situations require careful consideration of multiple legal issues. Volunteer planning becomes more complex if volunteers move across state lines because applicable tort immunity statutes,^[2] compensation limits,^[3]and workers compensation regimes vary significantly from one jurisdiction to another. Effective planning for volunteers requires these and other issues to be addressed well in advance of actual emergencies. Although predicting the scope or severity of any future crisis is impossible, the provided checklist of management best practices …

The Coronavirus Pandemic Shutdown And Distributive Justice: Why Courts Should Refocus The Fifth Amendment Takings Analysis, Timothy M. Harris

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

The 2020 Coronavirus Pandemic and the ensuing shutdown of private businesses—to promote the public’ s health and safety— demonstrated the wide reach of state and local governments’ police power. Many businesses closed and many went bankrupt as various government programs failed to keep their enterprises afloat.

These businesses were shut down to further the national interest in stemming a global pandemic. This is an archetypal example of regulating for the public health—preventing a direct threat that sickened hundreds of thousands of Americans. But some businesses were disproportionately hit while others flourished. Many who bore the brunt of these regulations sued, …

Tears In Heaven: Religiously And Culturally Sensitive Laws For Preventing The Next Pandemic, Eloisa C. Rodriguez-Dod, Aileen Maria Marty, Elena Maria Marty-Nelson

Catholic University Law Review

This Article argues that laws created to curtail the spread of deadly contagious diseases need to be drafted and implemented in ways that maximize acceptance of an affected communities’ cultural and religious beliefs. When laws are put in place that are inconsistent with community mores, the overall goal of stopping an epidemic is threatened. Communities often distrust government and other relief organizations who mandate rules and regulations that impinge their religious and cultural beliefs; thus, these regulations geared at helping communities can paradoxically undermine the goal of preventing the spread of infectious disease.

This Article focuses on the need for …