Diplo Blog

Lockdowns and other restrictions imposed by governments as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic have caused catastrophic losses to businesses. Foreign investors around the world, whose investments are protected under international investment treaties, are entitled to have disputes with the host state arbitrated by an international arbitration tribunal.

Older persons rank high amongst groups that are most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Not only do they face higher threats to their rights to life and health, but preventative and response-related measures further deepen their social isolation, and the chance to exercise their rights and autonomy. This will all continue until their voices are heard, and their views are seriously taken into account.

In 2019, the International Telecommunication Union’s (ITU) Telecommunication Development Bureau (BDT) published the report Measuring digital development. The report presented several important facts and figures, including that an estimated 4.1 billion people have used the Internet in 2019. Among them, 83.9% came from developed countries (DC), while only 19.6% came from the least developed countries (LDCs).

The COVID-19 pandemic is exacerbating the problems of persons living in situations of armed conflicts, and in particular those trying to escape from persecution, misery, and/or armed conflict, whether within or across national borders. Refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) are particularly vulnerable to the rapid spread of the Coronavirus because they can hardly comply with measures of confinement and social distancing, and have limited access to healthcare facilities.

We need to ensure we digitalise all of our business processes as to enable the effective digital transformation of our governments, businesses, and educational institutions so that the disruptive solutions brought by the global pandemic, including remote work, digital health, e-learning, and fintech, are collectively recognised as a pivot point in our history.

There... I’ve done it... I’ve met the challenge of how many currently fashionable buzzwords and jargon I can stuff into a single sentence.

As the international community begins preparing post-pandemic recovery programmes, increasing emphasis is placed on the urgent need to ‘build back better’ and to draw lessons from the COVID-19 crisis for building a more just, equitable, green, and peaceful world.

The RightOn webinar earlier this week brought together experts to discuss the use of technologies to facilitate contact tracing in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and asked whether such approaches represented a risk to the right to privacy. A diverse range of perspectives on human rights law – including those of civil society, computer science, academia and the telecommunications industry – informed the discussion.

The spread of the Coronavirus has caught many countries unprepared, and there has not been a unified response to the mounting threat. Governments around the world began targeting those they feel are responsible for the crisis. Enemies were numerous. Some were invisible, some were foreign citizens coming from Coronavirus hotspots, and others were disobedient co-nationals.

Tackling misinformation and protecting media freedom in time of crisis and data tracing apps and privacy challenges they pose were among the main digital policy trends in April 2020.

These and many other developments were covered during April’s just-in-time briefing on Internet governance – our monthly appointment on the last Tuesday of every month – which took place on 27 April 2020. They will also be summarised in the Issue 49 of the Geneva Internet Platform (GIP) Digital Watch newsletter.

As the Coronavirus outbreak continues to unfold, it is becoming clear that the pandemic and the concurrent economic crisis are impacting women differently than men. Considering that women account for 70% of global health and social care workers, and that they represent a higher percentage of persons in precarious, informal, or poorly paid work, they have come under even more pressure with the spread of the virus.