Message from the Bingham Centre

The Bingham Centre is not producing a Weekly Update during the current holiday period, but as we are all living through this unprecedented global health emergency, with the most profound implications for the Rule of Law, regular readers of the Update might be interested in this new podcast series in which our Director, Murray Hunt, discusses those implications with colleagues from the Bar and lawyers from around the world, including Hungary, Israel, Hong Kong, India and Kenya.

Episode 1: Public Emergencies and the Rule of Law  (2 April 2020), which considers the UK's response to the Covid-19 pandemic, including the legality of the Government's emergency measures and their compatibility with the requirements of the Rule of Law and human rights.

Episode 2: Power Grabs - Covid Across the Globe  (9 April 2020), which considers how some other countries are responding to the Covid-19 pandemic, with a particular focus on more authoritarian jurisdictions.

Episode 3: The Sound of Silence: the Vacuum in International Leadership and its Impact on the World's Poorest  (16 April 2020), which discusses the urgent need for international co-ordination and how the lack of such leadership is affecting people in poverty in the developing world.

The podcasts can also be listened to on iTunes, Spotify and Acast.

This week, BIICL also held a webinar on Covid-19 and International Law: What went wrong and what can we learn from it?, featuring Professor Philippe Sands QC in conversation with Gian Luca Burci, former Legal Counsel to the World Health Organisation. A recording of the webinar is available here.

Finally, in case you missed it, the Bingham Centre held a webinar in early April on The Global Coronavirus Emergency and the Rule of Law in which we sought to focus, not on the many challenges which the emergency undoubtedly throws up for the Rule of Law, but on whether the current unprecedented global emergency creates opportunities for advancing it. A recording of the webinar is available here. The substance of the discussion begins at 13:20.

Regular Bingham Centre Weekly Updates will resume next Friday 24th April.

In the meantime, we hope all our friends and supporters and their families are keeping safe and well during this anxious time.