key: cord-0049261-p6wwvwmc
authors: Terry, Patrick C R
title: Letter to the Journal To Fight a New Coronavirus: Crisis Management and International Cooperation from a Local Perspective in Germany
date: 2020-07-26
journal: nan
DOI: 10.1093/chinesejil/jmaa017
sha: 73e673cd5516eb09655b5e94df435a24bfcc87f6
doc_id: 49261
cord_uid: p6wwvwmc

nan

the measures undertaken by the regional governments and to recommend a specific course of action for the whole country. Of course, there are some instances when the federal government has to intervene, such as deciding to close the national borders, but overall, the federal government usually cannot compel the regional and local authorities to act in a specific way, even in the event of a catastrophe. 2 4. This system has advantages and disadvantages. At the beginning of the current crisis, the response by the various levels of government in Germany risked becoming incoherent. There were contradictory recommendations and rules. Speaking from my own experience at the university, we had to deal with exactly this kind of incoherence in early/mid-March. As far as mass events were concerned, the federal government was "recommending" to cancel events with more than 1000 participants. At the same time, we were informed that the regional government already had banned such gatherings. The next day we received a call from the local government advising against gatherings with more than 200 people, before it banned such meetings the day after. Confronted with this kind of decision-making, the university's crisis management team was meeting many times a day in order to develop a response to the latest recommendation or prohibition. In a centralised State, of course, the risk of such incoherence is much lower.

5. Over the course of time, however, the empowerment of local and regional levels of governments in Germany has, in my view, turned out to be an advantage. It enabled a local response to the local situation. As it happens, the spread of the pandemic in Germany turned out to be very uneven, with the south being much more affected than the north and the east. The federal system means that it has been possible to adopt the measures necessary for a specific region. Based on the number of infections and deaths in the South, the measures undertaken to combat the spread of the pandemic have remained in place there for a longer time than in other parts of the country. This kind of flexibility is a distinct advantage, especially if the decisions are made by the people on the ground, i.e. the regional governments that are more aware of the situation in their region than the central government in Berlin ever could be. Depending on the local situation, even the local governments could take their own initiative and lift some or impose further restrictions. While this has led to some confusion among citizens, because they have to make sure which rules apply in which region if they wish to travel within the country, it has allowed Germany to exit from the lockdown "light" imposed in the whole country pretty quickly.

6. The distribution of competencies within Germany also enables international cooperation at a level below the federal government. Why is international cooperation 2

Pierre Thielbörger, Benedict Behlert, COVID-19 und das Grundgesetz: Neue Gedanken vor dem Hintergrund neuer Gesetze, Verfassungsblog, 30 March 2020, (https://verfassungsblog.de/covid-19-und-das-grundgesetz-neue-gedanken-vor-demhintergrund-neuer-gesetze/). at a local level important when dealing with a pandemic? This question actually has two parts: 1) why is international cooperation important when fighting the spread of a disease? and 2) why should this cooperation also take place at a local level? 7. In response to the first part of the question it is self-evident that stopping the spread of and dealing with a pandemic that threatens the whole world necessitates international cooperation in order to be effective. How else can information and can resources be shared? The rationale behind Article 44 of the International Health Regulations surely is that a joint effort is preferable to unilateral actions. It is almost a platitude, but it is simply true that a virus knows no borders. It is therefore almost foolhardy to attempt to take on such a crisis alone. Given that parts of Asia, including China, were affected first by the pandemic, it would be unwise not to exchange information and to learn from those countries' experiences. Of course, this must be a twoway street-as far as new insights are won or new discoveries made, these must be shared with every other State. Unfortunately, the coronavirus pandemic was not the first and will not be the last pandemic the world will have to confront. This makes it even more important for all of us that knowledge is shared in order to be better prepared next time. 3 8. Having recently reread Sienho Yee's contribution to the Chinese Journal of International Law in 2014, in which he built on his earlier discussion of his concept of the international law of co-progressiveness, 4 I came to realize that we certainly need international law to develop (further) in such a direction so as to achieve the goal of "human flourishing" Sienho Yee espouses. When, if not now, confronted with a worldwide crisis such as the pandemic, will the international community cooperate in order to improve the situation of mankind? As far as health issues are concerned, the world is in the fortunate position of having already created an organisation that is able to help coordinate international efforts at combatting the outbreak of highly infectious diseases-the World Health Organization (WHO). No matter whether some of the criticism of the WHO's initial reaction to the crisis 5 is justified or not, surely it is to the world's advantage to already have such a forum in order to share experiences and resources.

9. Having explained why I believe international cooperation to be of utmost importance when responding to a pandemic, I will now turn to the second part of my original question, which is why it is also important for that cooperation to extend beyond the State level to include collaboration between the various local levels of government in different States. At the outset, it needs to be acknowledged that it is the regional and local governments that have to deal with any health emergency on a daily basis-they need to ensure that hospitals are able to cope, that essential services (such as waste collection) are provided despite the pandemic and that the rules and regulations developed in the course of the crisis are actually enforced locally. Thus, regional and local governments are at the forefront of responding to such a crisis and therefore confronted with the practical problems this response entails on a daily basis. Furthermore, it is very important for local authorities to act as fast as possible in order to keep the spread of the disease in check. For that reaction to be as effective as possible, it is self-evident that local and regional authorities should exchange information and share experiences internationally, without respecting borders. 6 10. Large cities and rural areas within the same country are faced with different challenges when responding to a pandemic, due to, for example, the density of population and the state of the infrastructure. Large cities worldwide, however, will have a lot in common when confronting a health crisis, even if these cities are located in different States. Thus, a city such as Berlin or Munich will obviously benefit from cooperating with another city, such as Vienna or Milan, that was hit by the pandemic at an earlier stage and therefore gained important insights relevant to any large city at a comparable stage of development. The same is obviously true for rural areas. 7 For this reason, the European Union (EU) explicitly encouraged international cooperation at a local level and provided some tools for this to work more efficiently. 8 6

Marlène Siméon, EU global response to COVID-19: a global pandemic with local solutions!, EURACTIV.com, 24 April 2020, (www.euractiv.com/section/citiesregions/opinion/eu-global-response-to-covid-19-a-global-pandemic-with-local-solutions/); Nahuel Oddone, Nahuel Alvaredo, City-to-city cooperation: Answers at a local level to COVID-19, United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG), 30 April 2020, (www.uclg.org/en/media/news/city-city-cooperation-answers-local-levelcovid-19); Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), Bulletin: rapid and local solutions for the coronavirus pandemic, 5 June 2020, (www.giz.de/en/html/85128.html). 7

Marlène Siméon, EU global response to COVID-19: a global pandemic with local solutions!, EURACTIV.com, 24 April 2020, (www.euractiv.com/section/citiesregions/opinion/eu-global-response-to-covid-19-a-global-pandemic-with-local-solutions/); Nahuel Oddone, Nahuel Alvaredo, City-to-city cooperation: Answers at a local level to COVID-19, United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG), 30 April 2020, (www.uclg.org/en/media/news/city-city-cooperation-answers-local-levelcovid-19 Unfortunately, however, it must be acknowledged that Germany, the European Union and others were slow to realize the potential of international cooperation, both at the national and local level. 9 However, it seems that lessons have been learned and the degree of cooperation greatly improved as the crisis unfolded. 10 11. What I have just outlined as far as the necessity of international cooperation at a local level is concerned again resonates with Sienho Yee's theory of the international law of co-progressiveness. As he rightly points out, it is necessary for the international system to be "all-encompassing as far as its subjects and/or participants are concerned" and not only focused on States. Local and regional governments can be important participants in the international system, especially when the world is confronted by crises that, certainly in the first instance, must be addressed by those regional and local authorities. It is vital that their voices are heard, as they are the implementors of the measures imposed to defeat the coronavirus. They are the practitioners and must bring their experiences to bear internationally in order to help others avoid mistakes.

12. My aim in this short comment was to demonstrate the importance of the local and regional levels of government when confronting health emergencies, whatever their constitutional role in the respective State. As they are at the forefront of defeating the pandemic, their actions are decisive as far as the success of containment is concerned. In my view it is therefore necessary to grant local and regional authorities the competencies necessary to enable them to react flexibly to the local situation because, within any given State, they are likely to be the best judge of the local and regional situation. Furthermore, international cooperation between these crisis management practitioners at the local and regional level needs to be encouraged, so that they can exchange information on short notice without having to revert to the cumbersome "official" route of international communication. As Sienho Yee argues, we still require a strong State; the current crisis has once again confirmed this, especially as far as dealing with the economic fallout is concerned. But this does not permit us to neglect the other actors who can make valuable contributions to the global fight against the pandemic.

The Nation versus the Union?

Corona-Pandemie-Was tut die EU?

Auf dem Prüfstand: die grenzüberschreitende deutsch-französiche Zusammenarbeit in der Corona-Krise, Interview with the President of the (French) Region of Grand Est