Diplo Blog

On 2 July 2020 I received an e-mail from Razvan Constantinescu, the energetic Romanian honorary-consul general for the south-west of England based in Bristol and president of the Bristol Consular Corps. This told me how the COVID-19 pandemic first revolutionised the nature of his workload, and then reduced it to a ‘walk in the park’.

The COVID-19 pandemic and related national ‘lockdowns’ have placed a huge strain on many businesses as well as national economies. Some businesses have reacted by doing all they can to protect jobs, health insurance, and livelihoods, while others have sought to cut costs with little thought for the impacts on human rights. Realising the importance and timeliness of the topic, the Right On initiative held a web chat titled ‘Business, the economy and livelihoods in a COVID-19 world’.

‘Black people live the estrangement that science fiction writers imagine.’

― Greg Tate (US writer, musician, and founding member of the Black Rock Coalition)

When the abuse of diplomatic immunity is alleged to have occurred, it usually refers to diplomatic officers taking advantage of their special status under the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (VCDR) to avoid penalties for misdemeanours, such as ignoring parking regulations, shoplifting, and so on; occasionally for more serious offences.

Transportation as the growth engine of the economy has been one of the industries that has been hit the hardest by the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic has substantially impacted how we work, how we travel, and how we use technology. It has put an incredible strain on global supply chains, from medical supplies to household goods, as spikes in demand stress-test logistics infrastructures. 

As COVID-19 spreads across the globe, South East Asia has become a particularly affected region, numbering, by 2 June 2020, more than 90 000 COVID-19 cases and 2000 deaths.

In times when public authorities make decisions that affect public health, civil liberties, and people’s prosperity, respecting the public’s right to access information on these decisions is vital.

Under international human rights laws, governments have the obligation to protect the right to freedom of expression, including the right to seek, receive, and impart information. Ensuring that reliable information is accessible in various formats and that all citizens have access to the Internet, is crucial if governments are to protect public interest.

During the COVID-19 crisis, for the first time in history, billions of people on all continents and at sea, underwent an identic experience, irrespective of country, race, nationality, or gender. No war, no crisis, no pandemic, no revolution in the past produced such a social and psychological impact, across all borders. The fear and uncertainty brought on by the virus triggered almost identical reactions from individual human beings and communities.

The future relationship negotiations between Britain and the EU, which commenced on 3 March 2020, teach many lessons in the art of negotiation. Among these are the obvious value of certain kinds of deadline and the less obvious value of publicly announcing ‘red lines’ before talks start. For present purposes I shall concentrate on what they reveal about videoconferencing and whether it has all been for show.

Tech in geopolitics, data tracing apps in focus, and cyber-attacks returning to ‘normal’ were among the main digital policy trends in May 2020.

These and many other developments were covered during May’s just-in-time briefing on Internet governance – our monthly appointment on the last Tuesday of every month – which took place on 26 May 2020. They are also summarised in the Issue 50 of the Geneva Internet Platform (GIP) Digital Watch newsletter.