The COVID-19 pandemic presents a number of questions concerning the law. These legal issues include not only international law, but also the national laws and regulations for the nation-states affected by this global crisis. Commentators from around the world have considered many of these legal issues and offered their insights in a variety of online forums. Unfortunately, this legal analysis is scattered across the internet, making it a practical difficulty for security practitioners to readily find information that could be valuable to their efforts.

To address this informational challenge, the law faculty at the George C. Marshall Center has developed “COVID-19 and the Law:  A Compilation of Legal Resources.” This matrix brings together all known commentaries and analysis on the legal aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic, and provides internet hyperlinks to all of these publications. The individual items of legal commentary are organized under a series of sub-topics. For international law, these include not only the primary considerations of global health security law, the law of state responsibility, information and cyber law, and human rights law, but also ancillary considerations, such as international migration law, international trade law, and transnational organized crime law. For the national laws of various nations, these include laws and regulations governing emergency powers, continuity of government, military support, and civil liberties, along with others.

This resource is updated on a recurring basis, and new additions to the updated compilation are indicated with highlighting. Please note that the inclusion of any specific publication within this compilation is not necessarily an endorsement by the U.S. Government, the German Government, or any agency of either of those governments regarding the substantive content of the views expressed therein.  Any questions concerning this publication can be addressed to marshall.law [at] marshallcenter.org (marshall[dot]law[at]marshallcenter[dot]org).