Promoting Peace During A Pandemic
A pandemic is an epidemic of an infectious disease that has spread across a large region, for instance multiple continents or worldwide, affecting a substantial number of individuals. A widespread endemic disease with a stable number of infected individuals is not a pandemic.
In partnership with its global Citizenship partner PeaceTech Lab, Hogan Lovells has taken an innovative approach to combat violence during the COVID-19 pandemic.
World peace, or peace on Earth, is the concept of an ideal state of peace within and among all people and nations on Planet Earth. Different cultures, religions, philosophies, and organisations have varying concepts on how such a state would come about.
Driven by research and the use of technology, the firm has supported PeaceTech Lab to launch the COVID-19 Violence Tracker, a new resource for policymakers, activists, and crisis response professionals to track and better respond to violence resulting from the current pandemic.
Over 120 lawyers from Hogan Lovells offices around the world have so far participated in the project, which aims to catalogue and highlight incidents and assist the vulnerable around the world.
Incidents logged on the tracker include threats and physical harm, excessive force by police, governments and vigilantes, domestic abuse, xenophobia and the confiscation or abuse of essential resources as the virus spread worldwide.
Early findings indicate that countries with low infection rates of COVID-19 had a rise in deaths related to police brutality rather than the disease itself.
In addition, the xenophobia, race-based attacks and abuse on Asian communities were increasingly perpetuated not only by individuals, but also by institutions, governments, businesses and the media.