To Fight a New Coronavirus: The COVID-19 Pandemic, Political Herd Immunity, and Global Health Jurisprudence

The collapse of political herd immunity during COVID-19 has epidemiological, geopolitical, ideological, and legal sources. The international system encountered what experts most feared—a novel, dangerous respiratory virus transmissible among humans in a globalized world. However, the coronavirus emerged as balance-of-power politics returned to international relations. Ideological differences compounded geopolitical tensions and created divisiveness in domestic politics. In this turbulent context of power and ideas, international law proved vulnerable and inadequate to support robust pandemic cooperation.