Who will be held liable for COVID-19?
The world is indeed shrinking with the advances in communication. In a matter of minutes, we learn anything and everything from agriculture to wars from the minds of people in the opposite side of the physical earth. Let us take the case of the present pandemic caused by COVID-19. Now we know that the so-called epicenter of this disease is Europe, not Wuhan, in the Province of Hubei. China, anymore.
I have my share of social media accounts of COVID-19 since its early surge and when it was just known as Corona Virus. There are apparently innocent claims as well as incredibly horrifying reportage in the internet on how this virus evolved. The fact that is clear is that this disease (or whatever it really is) started in Wuhan, China, or wherever it is.
My off tangent nature desires to veer away from any discussion of this virus. Candidly speaking. I may have nothing intelligent to contribute to a meaningful exchange of ideas on how to control it. I do not want to waste this space talking nonsense. Even Dr. Anthony Stephen Fauci, the American immunologist and considered as the top infectious-disease of the US, gets misunderstood when he, in honest demeanor, said that the testing of US is a “failing”.
There is no doubt that virus has wrought unimaginable damage throughout the world. It has infected more or less 180,000 persons (as of Tuesday cable news cast) and killed more than 7,000 with Italy suffering 2,158 deaths coming in second to China, the originator. Since there is yet no announced cure for it, all efforts are focused in trying to prevent its transmission. As a dreaded consequence of quarantine like isolation of people, most productive human activities have ground to unexpected halt. There is no telling the day when infections are totally aborted. Weeks? Months? Nobody knows. So, when medical science finally finds a cure for this pandemic, the damage will be staggering.
What comes after virus is finally solved? China is where this virus started. As I said above, some social media sources claim that the Corona virus is one of the arsenals in Chinese biological warfare which it unleashed for the world to suffer and I do not want to believe it. Others claim that it was rather a lack of diligence by a Chinese functionary in its handling that started the spread of the virus and this assertion may be more credible. Just the same, in the certainty that a Wuhan. China laboratory pricked open, by design or by accident, whatever seal that kept corona virus and had to spread it to the world, the question as to whether China may be held responsible comes to fore.
The world legal theater opens soon after mankind defeats COVID-19. That is inevitable. Someone must account for the deaths of thousands and the sickness of hundreds of thousands more. To me China has to pay for the economic upheaval its Corona virus caused throughout the world. In international law, there is this concept known as State Responsibility. It is a liability more anchored on Torts although the act of a Chinese government agency in starting the spread of the virus may also be deemed “an internationally wrongful act”.
According to D. J. Harris, in his book Cases and Materials on International Law, a “state is responsible, xxx if it damages the territory or property of another state”. While Harris himself admits that this theory “is not very well developed”, our legal scholars have the duty to explore all legal angles to make China responsible for the damages our people have suffered.
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