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Purpose – This chapter aims to analyze the pandemic situation in a legal and political point of view, to find what measures have been adopted by States to face the spread of the contagion, and whether those measures have been determinant in the redefinition of democracy. Emergency dispositions were enacted when an “emergency state” was declared, containing a series of dangerous elements for the correct application of the rule of law.

Methodology/Approach – The approach considers a “pluralistic methodology” that refers to a comparative law study, but also uses the approach of political science, history of institutions, and sociology. From this point of view, this chapter regards similarities and differences, between two or more legal systems, as coincidences or dissonances, comparing cases in a diachronic and synchronic way at the same time to evidence what is the democratic erosion.

Findings – This chapter doesn’t want to provide a mere chronicle of what happened during the COVID-19 situation, but it finds that in some peculiar cases emergency affected a degeneration of democratic institutions, and an acceptance of a new model of state, with hypertrophic executives, weak legislative bodies, not equilibrated balance of fundamental rights, and a rise of technocracy.

Originality/Value – Based on other studies focused on state-by-state oversights during the pandemic, our theory intends to enlighten the COVID-19 as a “black swan” in the international political and legal scenario, or a sort of turning point in an inevitable and unstoppable transformation of the state model that appears to aspire to a return of some autocratic attitudes.

This chapter generally concerns how elements of liberal democratic constitutional discourse have functioned to normalize emergency and possible state of exception governance during the COVID-19 pandemic. More specifically, the chapter focuses on the transference of legislative power to the executive under conditions of emergency rule and how it is possible for delegated emergency lawmaking to operate beyond the limits of what is constitutionally permissible; thus, triggering a state of exception. The chapter uses the deployment emergency rule during the pandemic in The Bahamas as a case study to show how ambivalence and legal uncertainty were the two principal drivers of the normalization process produced by elements of constitutional discourse, and then further explains how constitutionalism, generally, and in its dysfunctional application, can reinforce the processes normalizing emergency and possible state of exception governance.

The intensifying effects of climate change and the growing concentration of population in hazardous locations mean that, for many communities, disasters are increasingly becoming not only foreseeable, but inevitable. While much attention is, and should be, focused on what these foreseeable disasters require in terms of disaster planning and mitigation, attention should also be focused on a related and equally pressing phenomena: mismanagement of disaster response, particularly as climate proves an increasing stressor. Like disasters themselves, disaster mismanagement – while not entirely predictable – may exhibit some predictable patterns. This chapter explores past disaster management failures, considers how climate change may alter or exacerbate certain response pathologies, and evaluates some potential remedies that might mitigate these challenges.

The study examined library personnel awareness of the availability of emergency response plans, their forms and roles in safety routine preparedness and control in federal and state university libraries in Southwest Nigeria.

The survey research design alongside a multi-stage sampling procedure comprising purposive, randomisation and total enumeration techniques guided the study. The population consisted of 327 library personnel drawn from 12 federal and state university libraries (i.e., six each). The questionnaire and structured interview methods were used for data gathering. Of the 327 copies of the questionnaire administered, 249 copies, representing 76.1%, were duly completed and found valid for analysis. Whereas the acceptance threshold of ≥90% response rate and a criterion mean of 2.50 were adopted for making judgements regarding the research questions, while the hypothesis was tested using chi-square statistics with cross-tabulation.

The state university libraries in the studied region are extremely lagging behind their federal counterpart in terms of emergency preparedness, judging by the availability of emergency response plan (ERPs). However, documenting the plans for routine emergency response is not widespread among the university libraries; thus, the extent of response preparedness is both simplistic and doubtful. Despite the seemingly proactive nature of the federal university libraries over their state counterpart, librarians in both settings do not perceive effectiveness and preference in either the written emergency response plan (WERP) or unwritten emergency response plan (UERP) as an emergency preparedness and control measure.

The research increases knowledge of emergency preparedness in university libraries beyond the mere availability of ERPs. Through a comparative empirical analysis, the desirability of the WERP as a measure of emergency response preparedness in university libraries has been strengthened.

Purpose – This chapter examines how the response to the pandemic will have an impact for many years on rule of law mechanisms and human rights within Hungary.

Methodology/Approach – The arguments put forward in this chapter are supported by analysis of key legislation both domestic and international concentrating on how the concept of rule of law has been redefined. This analysis is conducted by focusing on the Hungarian legislation, Fundamental Law, and key sources engaging in the analysis of the effects that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on reshaping the legal landscape.

Findings – In the unprecedented times of a global pandemic it is important to reflect on how the Governments of the world responded to the immediate danger and what ramifications those changes will have as the pandemic unfolds over the coming years. This raises questions regarding the European political landscape and how the cause of the rule of law can be furthered. This chapter argues that the rule of law project of the European Union (EU) as set out in Article 2 of the Treaty of the European Union (TEU) has been circumvented by several rogue states. The European parliament now is finding new ways to engage with and curtail “rogue” Member States which, according to them, step out of line.

Originality/Value – The current research contributes to the ongoing dialogue about the tension that the COVID-19 pandemic had on global legal frameworks. Of particular interest is how the EU and its institutions are uniquely placed to act as an external guarantor of the rule of law. However, this relationship has been tested by Member States, in particular Hungary, with its use of emergency measures. This chapter compliments the body of academic work by analyzing how Hungary has reached the position it is in today and what could be done to bring it back within the ethos of Article 2’s common values of the Member States.

Decision-making problems in emergency plan selection for epidemic prevention and control (EPAC) are generally characterized by risky and uncertainty due to multiple possible emergency states and vagueness of decision information. In the process of emergency plan selection for EPAC, it is necessary to consider several obvious features, i.e. different states of epidemics, dynamic evolvement process of epidemics and decision-makers' (DMs') psychological factors such as risk preference and loss aversion.

In this paper, a novel decision-making method based on cumulative prospect theory (CPT) is proposed to solve emergency plan selection of an epidemic problem, which is generally regarded as hybrid-information multi-attribute decision-making (HI-MADM) problems in major epidemics. Initially, considering the psychological factors of DMs, the expectations of DMs are chosen as reference points to normalize the expectation vectors and decision information with three different formats. Subsequently, the matrix of gains and losses is established according to the reference points. Furthermore, the prospect value of each alternative is obtained and the comprehensive prospect values of alternatives under different states are calculated. Accordingly, the ranking of alternatives can be obtained.

The validity and robustness of the proposed method are demonstrated by a case calculation of emergency plan selection. Meanwhile, sensitivity analysis and comparison analysis with fuzzy similarity to ideal solution (FTOPSIS) method and TODIM (an acronym in Portuguese for interactive and MADM) method illustrate the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed method.

An emergency plan selection method is proposed for EPAC based on CPT, taking into account the psychological factors of DMs.

Highlights

1. This paper proposes a new CPT-based EDM method for EPAC under a major epidemic considering the psychological factorsof DMs, such as risk preference, loss aversion and so on.

2. The authors' work gives approaches of normalization, comparison and distance measurement for dealing with the integration of three hybrid formats of attributes.

3. This article gives some guidance, which contributes to solve the problems of risk-based hybrid multi-attribute EDM.

4. The authors illustrate the advantages of the proposed method by a sensitivity analysis and comparison analysis with existing FTOPSIS method and TODIM method.

This paper proposes a new CPT-based EDM method for EPAC under a major epidemic considering the psychological factorsof DMs, such as risk preference, loss aversion and so on.

The authors' work gives approaches of normalization, comparison and distance measurement for dealing with the integration of three hybrid formats of attributes.

This article gives some guidance, which contributes to solve the problems of risk-based hybrid multi-attribute EDM.

The authors illustrate the advantages of the proposed method by a sensitivity analysis and comparison analysis with existing FTOPSIS method and TODIM method.

This paper challenges and expands commonplace assumptions about problems of time and temporality in emergencies. In traditional emergency powers theory “emergency time” is predominantly an “exceptional time.” The problem is that there is “no time” and the solution is limited “in time”: exceptional behavior is allowed for a special time only, until the emergency is over, or according to formal sunset clauses. But what is characteristic of many emergencies is not the problem of “no time” but the ways in which time is legally structured and framed to handle them. Using the Israeli High Court of Justice 1999 decision on the use of physical interrogation methods under conditions of necessity, this paper illustrates how legally significant emergency-time structures that lay beyond the problematic of exceptional time, gravely implicate the way that “exceptional measures” are practiced and regularized.

The purpose of this study was to clarify the impact of adults with Down syndrome (DS) on COVID-19 and the status of efforts for new normal in Japan through a Web survey.

Parents’ associations’ representatives sent requests to members aged 18 years or older inviting them to participate in an Internet survey. A total of 141 people cooperated, and 126 people were included in the analysis.

As a result of examining the number of times the state of emergency was declared and its impact on COVID-19, the degree of anxiety felt when hearing information about new coronavirus infections on television or the internet was significantly higher in subjects for whom the state of emergency was declared four times than in subjects for whom the state of emergency was declared two and three times in the region. This was significantly higher than that of the subjects in the areas where the state of emergency had been declared four times and significantly lower than that of the subjects in the areas where the state of emergency had been declared one time for “smiling”. The results suggest that the effects on physical and mental health, although limited, are influenced by the number of times the state of emergency was declared. From the analysis of the free text, it was inferred that some, but not all, of the subjects with DS, had their physical and mental state affected by COVID-19 to the extent that they required medical care.

This study clarified the psychosomatic effects of COVID-19 in people with DS in adulthood, which has not yet been fully clarified in the world. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study in Japan to clarify the physical and mental effects of COVID-19 on people with DS and the status of new normal initiatives.

Emergency preparedness (EP) is one of the crucial phases of the disaster management cycle for the built environment. The body of knowledge, therefore, reports on different preparedness standards adopted by developed countries such as the United Kingdom (UK), the United States of America (USA), Canada, Japan and Australia. Other countries, however, such as the United Arab Emirates (UAE) (in the absence of its preparedness framework), have long adapted the UK preparedness standards. This has called for this study to investigate the state of EP practices in the UAE to identify the limitations and challenges it has been facing during its preparedness phase when adopting the UK preparedness standards.

Qualitative methods of data collection and documentation with the content analysis were adopted to identify the barriers faced by the preparedness phase of emergency management (EM) in the UAE. A Pilot study was therefore conducted to validate eight key elements of the EP phase identified from the literature. The state of EP phase and the extent to which the eight key elements of EP elements were practiced and the barriers in their implementation in the UAE were explored through interviews at federal (National Crisis and Emergency Management Authority) and local levels (local team of crisis and emergency management).

The study identified eight key elements of the EP phase and the associated barriers related to their implementation in the UAE. The barriers were ranked based on their severity by interviewing experts at both federal and local levels.

This paper addresses the need to investigate the state of the EP phase, its key elements and the barriers faced during its implementation in the UAE.

Due to the absence of any EP frameworks or systems in the UAE, this paper aims to validate the EP elements identified by adopting a qualitative approach.