Call for Abstracts: COVID-19 and the Law: Disruption, Impact, and Legacy, The Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School and the Solomon Center for Health Law and Policy at Yale Law School
COVID-19 and the Law: Disruption, Impact, and Legacy
Call for Abstracts
2020-2021 Virtual Conference and Potential Publication
The Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School and the Solomon Center for Health Law and Policy at Yale Law School are pleased to announce a call for abstracts examining the COVID-19 pandemic from several innovative perspectives, but especially focusing on its relationship with health law and policy. The authors of selected papers will be invited to present their work at a virtual conference, to take place through a series of workshops. They may also be asked to present in an academic workshop virtually at one of the two law schools.
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected almost all aspects of life in the United States and around the world, disrupting the global economy as well as countless institutions. Health care—including through health law and policy—has been deeply impacted. Our aim is to better understand what COVID-19 can teach us about our health care system, public health policy, and law by critically reflecting on what changes the pandemic has already introduced alongside a cutting-edge consideration of what its legacy might be. We also aim to explore COVID’s impact on other areas of the law beyond health care.
We welcome submissions that consider the impact of COVID on: institutionalized populations not limited to the elderly and the incarcerated; intersections with sexism, aging, disability, and racism; the science and treatment of infectious diseases; administrative law; and much more. In addition, how has the evolution of the pandemic been affected by our institutions, including the structure of our health care system and its attendant regulations? What changes have the legal responses to COVID introduced that are likely to remain for years or decades to come? We also welcome proposals that engage more broadly with COVID and other key areas of law and regulation. Contributors will address these as well as other issues reflecting on this unprecedented global public health crisis.
Call for Abstracts
Abstracts should focus on the fresh contributions that a submission will make, including by providing sketches of supporting arguments. The abstract should include (but not be limited to) a paragraph summarizing the issue that will be addressed and any currently contending views about its resolution.
Potential research areas of interest include:
- Health care systems including telehealth, insurance and payment systems, and cross-border licensing
- Rights of health care workers, including the right to personal protective equipment (PPE)
- Science and the FDA, including testing, vaccines and access to treatments
- Public health interventions to control COVID spread (masks, social distancing, quarantines, etc.)
- Long term care/homecare
- Privacy and contact tracing
- Medical disparities
- Disability
- Medical ethics, including rationing/scarcity and the availability of medical supplies (inclusive of stockpiles)
- Institutionalized elderly and ageism
- Reproductive justice
- (Tolerance for) Death
- Racial justice and systemic inequalities
- Social determinants of health
- Special issues related to prisons and incarceration, including immunity for prison officials
- Urban planning and rethinking the modern city in the wake of pandemic
- Constitutional Law, including access to elective medical services, reproductive services, guns, and religious services
- Federal and local emergency powers
Please note that this list is not meant to be exclusive or exhaustive; it suggests potential avenues for inquiry. We encourage other contributions that engage how health law and policy have shaped the global pandemic and how the pandemic will shape health law and policy for years to come. Proposals should demonstrate a clear linkage to both aspects of the virtual conference and academic workshop: the COVID-19 pandemic and health policy/regulation/law. Papers that focus on ethics should include substantial discussion of policy implications. Successful abstracts will propose or outline an argument/position, rather than merely stating a topic.
In an effort to encourage interdisciplinary and international dialogue, we welcome submissions from legal scholars and lawyers, bioethicists, philosophers, clinicians, medical researchers, disability and civil rights advocates, public health practitioners, behavioral economists, government officials and staff, and others who have a meaningful contribution to make on this topic. We welcome philosophical and legal reflections from contributors across the world, but with a preference for contributions that are general or United States focused. We welcome submissions from advocacy organizations, think tanks, and others outside academia, but emphasize that this is a scholarly endeavor, and abstracts/papers will be held to academic standards of argumentation and support. As health law and policy centers, we are aware of the disproportionate burden that COVID-19 has on BIPOC individuals and communities. We welcome submissions from contributors who represent and/or highlight marginalized voices and experiences.
How to Participate
If you are interested in participating, please send a 1-page abstract of the paper you would plan to present (saved as “[LastName]_[FirstInitial]_COVID_Abstract.docx”) to health.law@yale.edu as soon as possible, but not later than Friday, August 14, 2020. Please submit with a subject line reading “COVID Virtual Conference.” If your abstract is selected, your final paper of 5,000 words, including references, will be due on Friday, January, 29, 2021, and you will be assigned a presentation slot for the conference/virtual workshops that will occur over the course of 2020-21. All presenters must provide a full final draft in order to participate and presenters are expected to attend all but one of the virtual workshops. Co-authored papers must name a single presenter.
In the past, our Centers have successfully turned several of our conferences into journal issues and/or edited volumes (for example: Petrie-Flom Center and Solomon Center). It is possible, although not guaranteed, that workshop presenters will publish their papers with us in an edited volume whose chapters will be limited to 5,000 words, including references. All presenters should plan on contributing their submission to any subsequent volume arising from the conference and should not submit an abstract if they anticipate this will be a problem. Previous participants have been able to publish their submissions in different formats in multiple venues, for example both as a short book chapter and a longer law review article. However, the version that will be used for an edited volume should not have been published previously or be intended for separate publication.
Questions
Please contact the Petrie-Flom Center or the Solomon Center with any questions: petrie-flom@law.harvard.edu or health.law@yale.edu.