On August 27, GSL Director Steven Hoffman and GSL Associate Director Patrick Fafard published an article in Policy Options discussing why governments moved to enact border closures at the outset of COVID-19 even though closures have in the past shown to be ineffective and illegal under international law.
In the article, the authors highlight that border closures are a way for governments to deflect and avoid blame. Border closures have not shown to have any significant epidemiological impacts and therefore are according to Hoffman and Fafard rather imposing political symbols.
A more extensive version of this article has been published as a book chapter in Flood et al.’s textbook Vulnerable.
Read the article in Policy Options here.
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