The purpose of this project is to model and understand socio-legal responses to the spread of COVID-19—in particular, emergency measures that derogate from states’ human rights commitments. Derogation of human rights in response to COVID-19 is unprecedented, according to some experts (Scheinin 2020). This project investigates whether combinations of conditions, such as moderate human rights derogation in combination with strong health infrastructures, reduce degrees of virus transmission and promote prevention. Its preliminary findings indicate that suspension of some rights appears crucial to limiting COVID-19 infections, but suspension of many rights has limited impacts, raising questions for practices of human rights derogation, including whether COVID-19 human rights suspensions violate the proportionality and non-discrimination aspects of derogation. Suspension of rights necessitates generation of more sophisticated data modeling to inform policy and public health practices surrounding COVID-19 transmission. This study contributes not only to research and scholarship, but to policy and public health practices surrounding COVID-19 transmission
