The evolving international law standards governing restrictions of economic, social, and cultural rights during public health emergencies

While COVID-19 lockdowns extensively disrupted health services, food supply, and education, such disruptions are rarely framed as human rights restrictions or derogations. I argue that this silence is rooted in contrasting limitations regimes that arose from Cold War disputes framing these rights as progressive, programmatic, and non-justiciable. In this paper, I analyze the evolution of standards on restrictions of social rights during a public health emergency. First, I compare legal regimes in the two primary covenants, and what drafting history illuminates about the reasons for these differences. I then compare these to the regional human rights systems. Second, I consider interpretations of restrictions under both covenants, focusing on the Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights’ general comments and emerging Optional Protocol jurisprudence. Third, I analyze what these interpretations indicate about the international law standards for restrictions of these rights during a public health emergency. I find that these legal criteria increasingly recognize their evolving nature as justiciable rights that impose clear obligations. However essential components like core obligations and public health crisis must be further developed as key dimensions of economic, social, and cultural rights-related proportionality.