The COVID-19 Review Observatory
Birmingham Law School research project
The COVID Review Observatory (CVRO) is a resource that records, tracks, and assesses reviews of responses to the COVID-19 pandemic from a human rights perspective
The CVRO studies what parliaments in Westminster, Belfast, Cardiff and Edinburgh are doing to subject government responses to the COVID-19 pandemic to review. On the Observatory you will find records and analysis of these reviews, focusing on how independent they are, how evidence-based they are, how participatory they are, and how much they take into account the human rights impact of the pandemic responses they are reviewing.
What is COVID-19 Review?
What is COVID-19 Review?
'COVID-19 review' is a term to describe the mechanisms by which government responses to the COVID-19 pandemic are subjected to parliamentary review in the United Kingdom.
What Does the CVRO Do?
What Does the CVRO Do?
The CVRO studies COVID-19 review in the four parliaments in the United Kingdom, i.e. Westminster, the Welsh Assembly, the Northern Irish Assembly, and the Scottish Parliament. Through its original assessment instrument—the COVID Review Report Card—the CVRO will assess these reviews against five criteria: independence, rights framing, evidence, participation, and influence.
Committed, also, to improving engagement with human rights in COVID-19 review, the CVRO will make submissions to all reviews that allow them, seeking to ensure appropriate engagement with the rights-related impacts of government responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Why does COVID-19 Review Matter?
Why does COVID-19 Review Matter?
Review of government action enhances transparency about government action and enables us to understand and scrutinise the impacts of government action. It thus supports the accountability, transparency, and legitimacy of state action.
In the context of COVID-19, review enables evidence-based assessment of laws and regulations that were, in some cases, introduced in great urgency, with limited parliamentary debate, and in the context of a fast-changing epidemiological and statistical landscape.
Research Team
Research Team
Professor Fiona de Londras (Principal Investigator)
Professor of Global Legal Studies
Fiona is (co)author and (co)editor of 10 books and dozens of articles in leading journals. Her work has been funded by the European Commission, British Academy, Leverhulme Trust, and Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, and she has provided consultancy and advice to a range of international organisations, NGOs, and politicians. Her core interests are rights, constitutionalism, and transnationalism.
Daniella Lock (Research Fellow)
Daniella is the research fellow for the CVRO. Her work is focused on human rights law and government accountability. She is completing a PhD at University College London and has an undergraduate degree in Philosophy and Politics from the London School of Economics.
Ann Evans (Project Administrator)
Ann is a Research Project Portfolio Administrator in the College of Arts and Law, supporting two projects in the Law School: the COVID Review Observatory (CVRO) and COVID-19 social care easements: removing rights from the vulnerable. Ann is also one of two part-time administrators working for the NIHR BRACE Rapid Evaluation Centre in the School of Social Policy based in the Health Services Management Centre and has particular responsibility for supporting projects at the centre. Ann is also part-time Administrator for the SSCR, School for Social Care
