It was mid-March 2020 in Birmingham in the UK and everything was normal. Friends met friends for coffee, embracing each other with a warmth, as friends do. People side-stepped the homeless person on the pavement outside the train station, avoiding eye contact as they hurried on. Shops were full. Restaurants were full. Everything was normal. It was one of the most surreal experiences of my life.

As an Irish person living in the UK, I consume media from both countries. In mid-March 2020, Ireland was already in lockdown in response to the COVID-19 pandemic; meanwhile in the UK, the government seemed considerably more reluctant to close things down. It was like living in two parallel universes, where Irish media coverage hunkered down, bracing itself for the oncoming storm; at the same time, the UK kept calm and carried on, debating the merits of ‘herd immunity’. Eventually, the UK followed suit, although it would ultimately end up with the highest death toll in Europe.

This is a book about the COVID-19 pandemic. It is a reflection on some of the key issues raised by this pandemic. It explores how law can accommodate necessary responses to such an extreme crisis but also, how law can – and should – control these responses too.

Chapter One (The Pandemic State of Emergency) outlines a theory of states of emergency, demonstrating that these provisions in constitutions and international treaties are designed to quarantine exceptional powers to exceptional situations. I show how pandemics are, very much, a threat that can be accommodated by states of emergency and further, that this response was taken by some states but not by others during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Chapter Two (Pandemics and Human Rights: Non-Derogable Rights) then discusses the human rights implications of state responses to pandemics, articulating a theory of human rights that best encapsulates what I term their ‘emancipatory potential’ – by this I mean human rights’ potential to not simply prevent the state or others from encroaching upon a person's freedom but also to empower a person and take control of one's life.