VACCINATION IN THE SYSTEM OF HUMAN RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS: IMPACT OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Abstract

The aim: To identify the problems and prospects of introducing mandatory vaccination against COVID-19 in the context of respect for human and civil rights and freedoms based on generalization and systematization of foreign experience in implementing such measures. Materials and methods: In the research, we applied a complex of philosophical and ideological approaches, general scientific and special methods of scientific cognition, in particular civilizational and axiological approaches as well as dialectical, dogmatic, comparative, and statistical methods. The empirical basis of the study is represented by the statistical data of the healthcare sector of European countries, generalization of the practice of vaccination. In the study, we use international and European regulatory legal acts and documents in the field of human rights, national legislation of foreign countries. Conclusions: Vaccination represents an important component of the fundamental right to health. International legal acts on the human rights regulation, in particular the right to health, do not provide an unambiguous answer to the question of whether vaccination is the right or responsibility of a person, which has resulted in the existence of a wide range of vaccination policies and models. The existence of a wide range of policies and practices in States Parties to the Convention makes permissible the application of more imperative approaches to immunization, in particular, in cases where voluntary vaccination is not sufficient to ensure the threshold of herd immunity. In most countries, vaccination against COVID-19 is carried out voluntarily, whereas the complication of the epidemiological situation has resulted in following the path of introducing mandatory vaccination in some countries, both with regard to certain population categories (France, Greece, Russia, Ukraine) and the entire population (Tajikistan, Turkmenistan).