"The ultra-precariousness revealed by the pandemic"

On June 9, the Faculty of Legal Sciences organized the conference "The role of international law in times of pandemic", given by Dr. Luis Eslava, professor at the universities of Kent (United Kingdom), Melbourne (Australia), the Institute for global legislation from Harvard Law School (USA) and Professor at the Externado University of Colombia.

During the conference, the Colombian professor shared his critical vision on the role that public international law has been playing during the crisis due to the COVID19 pademic, particularly in the Global South.

Dr. Eslava spoke with the University Campus from France, where he is currently visiting his children after the lifting of travel restrictions in Europe, about the talk he gave and about the occasion he visited the University of Azuay.

My contact with the UDA is Professor Silvana Tapia, she did her doctorate at the University of Kent and I was fortunate to be one of her supervisors.

Two years ago Silvana took me to Cuenca for a week and we worked with undergraduate law students from the UDA and also with professors from all the faculties in a workshop on Ethnography and Law

My talk this week revolved around an international law perspective of the pandemic from two angles.

One is that the current pandemic has confirmed for us the level of globalization and interconnectedness that intersects us today and affects all spheres of our lives.

And, on the other hand, how to understand the effects of the pandemic, the analysis of the precariousnesses that we have been building for a long time that, in the current context, become ultra-precarious: for example, economic informality and the coronavirus.

In Colombia we currently have an interdisciplinary group that is studying the situation of informal workers, without social security, without occupational risk coverage, who at the same time support us, because they sell us food and build our houses, among other activities. .