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Why boycotting the 2022 FIFA World Cup is the only way to save it

Eelco Veldman

Eelco Veldman is a Public International Law (LLM) candidate in the Law of the Sea and Environmental Law track at Utrecht ľ�ϸ���Ӱ��. Before, he obtained his LLB and BA (History of Art) at Utrecht ľ�ϸ���Ӱ��. 

The Guardian that since 2010, when Qatar was awarded the right to host the 2022 World Cup, more than 6500 of its immigrant-workers have died. The article featured a spokesperson from the Human Rights organization who indicated that most of these workers were only in Qatar because of World Cup-related construction work. In 2015, Amnesty Intentional already reported on the of these workers—mostly drawn from Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan. Recruited through deceit, living in unsafe housing, and trapped in de facto , it was feared that many would work themselves to death.

Now the numbers are here to prove it.

But is it not true that soon the blood-stained desert sand will be covered with bright-green soccer pitches? That soon the workers’ will make way for hotels—conveniently offering both ? And that instead of worn-out overalls, the stadiums will be filled with t-shirts and banners that reaffirm lofty commitments to ‘‘’’, ‘‘’’, and ‘‘’�ę?

Yes, it will be an international celebration of ‘‘equality and inclusion’’—the so-called

Is this hypocrisy worth the sacrifice of 6500 human lives?

Not many are honest or heartless enough to respond in the affirmative, arguing that in this case the greatest happiness for the greatest number prevails or that an omelet simply needs some broken eggs. Indeed, some countries have protested—for instance downgrading their World Cup delegation by their Head of State.

True, voting is done with our feet, but everybody knows which feet are more essential for a World Cup. Not Heads of State enable the event, but the presence of national teams.

Therefore, if countries allow their national teams to participate—even though under formal protest—it means they still accept the sacrifice of 6500 lives as proportionate and acceptable. This would make them complicit in defending a cold pragmatic consequentialist calculation.

This pragmatism is irreconcilable with their supposed commitment to the so-called universal soccer values of fairness, respect, equality and non-discrimination, which are all rooted the absolute duty to respect human dignity. In other words: not to treat humans as means but only as ends in themselves.

For many countries—at least formally—the concept of human dignity forms the basis of their Constitution and thus ideally functions as a political lodestar. As such, it is therefore no surprise that the above values are now also regarded as part of the international soccer culture—and rightly so.

However, with the 2022 World Cup, it seems we have arrived at a point at which world leaders have to show their true colors. They either pragmatically accept the immense human sacrifice, thus proving this event and its soccer values to be nothing but a hypocritical charade. Or, assuming they take human dignity seriously, they cannot accept the discrimination, unfairness, and profound disrespect suffered by the immigrant-workers.

Hence, the right thing to do is to boycott the event and keep our soccer-teams home. Only then we enable ourselves to give the ‘‘soccer values’’ of the FIFA World Cup another chance. But most importantly, we owe this to the 6500 workers who lost their lives.  

Developed Countries’ Obligations to Help Developing Countries with COVID-19 Vaccinations: Legal and Ethical Perspectives

Lok Hei Ho

Lok Hei Ho is a student in the Public International Law Master’s programme at Utrecht ľ�ϸ���Ӱ��, specialising in human rights law.

While have already received their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine in the UK, much of the rest of the world, , have not even begun with vaccination. Some that developed countries, like the UK, have a duty to help developing countries with their vaccination efforts. Do they?

International law is not clear on whether states have such a legal duty.

Under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, state parties undertake to take steps “through international assistance and co-operation” to realise the human rights under the Covenant. This by the relevant UN monitoring Committee to mean that states are obliged to assist developing countries to realise the right to health, including providing immunisation against infectious diseases.

However, the Committee’s interpretation is not legally binding, and it has been otherwise that based on the drafting process of the Covenant as well as the actual conduct of states, such an obligation does not currently exist under international law after all.

While international law might not oblige developed countries to assist developing countries in COVID-19 vaccination, they are arguably nevertheless under an ethical duty to do so.

This proposition is supported by principles of distributive justice. One example of is luck egalitarian justice, which provides that where some are worse off than others by reasons beyond their control, there is a duty to correct this inequality.

Those in developing countries are not vaccinated at the same pace as their counterparts in developed countries because of none other than bad luck for being resident in a country that is unable to with wealthier developed states in securing COVID-19 vaccines. Justice would therefore require developed countries to rectify this inequity (to say nothing of the responsibility of Western countries for contributing to health disparity through colonialism in the first place, as some would ).

This duty of assistance would also be justified from a utilitarian perspective, which seeks to brought by COVID-19 vaccines. Developing countries would arguably see greater benefits from COVID-19 vaccines as their is less capable of caring for COVID-19 patients and is more susceptible to collapse from overloading. The community immunisation provided by COVID-19 vaccines could be more valuable in developing countries than in developed countries.

Accelerating the pace of vaccinations globally would also render more benefits to the world as a whole than if vaccinations focused in developed countries only. If large portions of the world’s population remain unvaccinated, a vaccine-resistant COVID-19 variant might very well emerge, offsetting any benefits the existing vaccines would bring.

Dominic Raab, Foreign Secretary of the UK, has that access to vaccines must be secured across the world. The UK (and other developed countries) should now prove that such statements are not mere lip service and fulfil their duty, ethical if not also legal, to developing countries to vaccinate their populations against COVID-19.

Israel’s ethical obligation to vaccinate Palestinians

Emile Hallo

Emile Hallo is currently pursuing his master’s degree in Public International Law at Utrecht ľ�ϸ���Ӱ��, where he specializes in Environmental Law. At present, he is writing his thesis on corporate environmental accountability in an international context.

According to , as of February 28^th, 38.9% of the 8.8 million Israeli citizens is fully vaccinated against Covid-19, which is the highest percentage in the world. While Israel has effectively administered its ample supply of vaccines and can slowly start to ease restrictions, the Palestinian authorities on the West Bank reinstated a strict lockdown on the 27^th of February, amid surging Covid-19 cases and lagging vaccination efforts. According to reports from the , Israel so far has only promised to deliver 5000 vaccines to the West Bank’s 2.5 million Palestinian population.

The imbalance between vaccination in the Palestinian territories and Israel has called attention to the responsibility of Israel in the occupied territories. A legal debate is ongoing between the UN, the Palestinian authorities and Israel on who is responsible for vaccinating the Palestinian population. Israel points to the Oslo accords, by which the Palestinian authorities have assumed responsibility over health care services on the West Bank. However, an annex to these accords calls for cooperation between Israel and the Palestinian authorities to combat epidemics. The UN and human rights advocates further state that Israel should vaccinate the Palestinian population together with its own population based on the Fourth Geneva Convention, which stipulates that occupying powers need to ensure public health for the people living under occupation.

The answer to this legal question requires extensive legal analysis, for which a court is better suited. However, leaving aside Israel’s legal argumentation for avoiding responsibility to vaccinate the Palestinians, ethical considerations provide clarity as to why Israel should vaccinate the Palestinians. Applying a utilitarian, consequentialist ethical framework to this issue shows why Israel is obliged to distribute vaccines to the Palestinians.

Consequentialism is based on the premise that as a moral imperative one should always strive for the maximization of happiness. This approach to ethical questions is often critiqued  however, due to the difficulty in defining happiness and predicting the future.  

The above-mentioned critiques in the present situation are undercut because the situation in the Palestinian territories is inherently bound to improve following vaccination. Furthermore, Israel does not suffer heavily from vaccinating Palestinians, besides carrying a potential financial burden, wherefore quite clearly the good outweighs the bad here. Not only does vaccinating the Palestinians not hurt the Israelis, it actually benefits them. As long as the coronavirus runs rampant through societies, it can mutate to a form that escapes the protection of vaccines. Especially considering the proximity and frequent contact between Israelis and Palestinians, Israeli citizens are at risk when the virus is left to spread unchecked in the Palestinian territories. Therefore, we do not need to specifically define happiness to conclude that we can make a strong assumption that vaccinating Palestinians will significantly improve the situation for both populations.

Based on the fact that Israel is able to vaccinate Israelis at a fast pace, we can assume they are able to provide vaccines to Palestinians at a similar pace. The ethical course of action for Israel is to provide vaccines to the Palestinians, regardless of its legal arguments potentially having merit. Vaccinating the Palestinians creates the greatest common good, wherefore the discussion on who carries the legal burden to provide public health for the Palestinians should be postponed for now.