The affirmation of international law in contexts of global crisis

Abstract

Academic studies on the impact, for the world society, of the crisis resulting from the global spread of the new coronavirus (Sars-CoV-2) and the disease caused by it (Covid-19) has led to several and different scenarios imagined for the post-pandemic. Considering the historical evolution of its rules and doctrine, International Law presents elements that can contribute to these studies. One of the consequences of most global crisis has been precisely the affirmation of the International Law as a privileged space for setting paradigms that lead world society in reconfiguring its functioning, in an inexorable context of greater integration. Following each global crisis – given the geographically wide impact of the crisis and the risk to the stability of the international order – there was, beyond any idealistic motivation, the strengthening of multilateralism and the expansion International Law. The finding of this correlation can be made by analyzing the transformations experienced by International Law in the wake of both generalized global crises, characterized by the collapse of international security, and specific global crises, of which the health crisis triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic is an example. The understanding of the risk to world stability that this pandemic entails will mean that important issues that have stagnated in recent years – global warming, social vulnerability, asymmetries in the international economy – will have to return to the agenda of a renewed multilateralism, generating a new movement in the evolution of International Law.