COVID-19 magnifies the vulnerabilities: The Brazilian case

AuthorClarice Seixas Duarte,Luiz Ismael Pereira,Douglas de Castro,Danielle Mendes Thame Denny
Published date01 September 2021
Date01 September 2021
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1177/13582291211031374
Subject MatterArticles
2021, Vol. 21(3) 272 –287
Article
COVID-19 magnifies
the vulnerabilities: The
Brazilian case
Danielle Mendes Thame Denny
1
, Clarice Seixas Duarte
2
,
Douglas de Castro
3
and Luiz Ismael Pereira
4
Abstract
This paper discusses inequalities of the health system in Brazil and advocates that now,
more than ever in light of the Covid-19 pandemic, the world needs to put in placea more
collaborative and egalitarian way of financing health research and investments in public
health systems.The role of the state and institutionsin the design of public policies for the
realization of social rights is debated in the face of the economic and political crisis. Here
we draw upon Martha Fineman’s vulnerability theory and Thomas Pogge’s view on justice
with regard to health.
Keywords
Vulnerabilities, inequalities, sovereignty, public health, Covid-19, international reforms,
Brazilian case
Introduction
Globalization, driven largely by the development of information technology, has made
the cheap and accurate movement of ideas across borders possible. Globalization has
1
Asian Pacific Centre for Environmental Law, National University of Singapore, Singapore
2
Department of Law, Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie, Sa
˜o Paulo, Brazil
3
Department of Law, Ambra University, Orlando, FL, USA
4
Department of Law, Universidade Federal de Vic¸osa, Vic¸osa, Minas Gerais, Brazil
Corresponding author:
Danielle Mendes Thame Denny, Center for Advanced Studies in Applied Research, Department of
Economy, Administration and Sociology, Escola Superior de Agricultura Luiz de Queiroz,
Universidade de Sa
˜o Paulo, Piracicaba 13418-900, Brazil.
Email: danielle.denny@gmail.com
International Journalof
Discrimination and theLaw
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DOI: 10.1177/13582291211031374
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Denny et al. 273
also increased the possibility of moving labour-intensive work abroad to where human
resources are cheaper, regulations are weaker and public policies more daunting for
employers. Businesses have become structured in global valu e chains and propelled
by the rapid industrialization process of a handful of developing nations in an era
denominated by what has been termed the ‘Great Convergence’ (Baldwin, 2016,
p. 12). The interdependence that globalization promotes has made the world less pre-
dictable and harder to control. Other ‘shaper nations’ (Hitchcock et al., 2016) came to the
position of influencing global politics and many national governments became weak or
unwilling to exert their regulatory power afraid to scare away investments, no matter the
size or level of development: as a result ‘sovereignties are continuously penetrated’
(N´
un
˜ez, 2017, p. 36). Nonetheless, the economic power of companies can surpass the
national GDP of many States. And three basic developments were made possible by the
actual integration of global supply chains, necessary for a global production: revolution-
ary information technology innovations occurred in all spheres of society, capital mobi-
lity increased, and risky financial instruments became more prevalent (Baldwin, 2016,
p. 12). As a consequence, countries increased interdependence and the need for coordi-
nation relativized their sovereignty.
In this globalized context, the highly heterogeneous set of rules which then apply to
businesses has led to a ‘polyarchic’ distribution of power where no single actor, nor even
the most powerful nation, has the capacity to impose its own solution without taking into
account the views of the others (Sabel and Zeitlin, 2010, p. 15). This reality call for a
different legal structure – one less rooted in sovereignty and articulated through inter-
national regimes that are ‘sets of principles, norms, rules and decision-making proce-
dures, explicit or implicit, around which the expectations of the actors are constructed in
a given area’ (Krasner, 2012, p. 93). International regimes correspond, theref ore, to
permanent institutional arrangements created to facilitate dialogue, the study of prob-
lems and to foster cooperation around common goals. And they are types of global
governance (Gonc¸alves and Costa, 2011, p. 43): the pragmatic cooperation of multiple
international actors in pursuit of goals through the most varied forms of legal, technical,
and administrative structures (Biermann, 2014, p. 54).
Advances in complex issues that need to be managed in a cooperative manner demand
increasing levels of commitment and a certain transfer of sovereignty from individual
states (Young, 2010, p. 25; 2014, p. 83). Consequently, impasses, punctual advances, and
unstable balances dominate the international system (Pauwelyn et al., 2014). The true
implications of this lack of international cooperation has become particularly evident
and problematic in the context of a pandemic where ‘everyone is a Westphalian’ (Papar-
inskis, 2020), trying to maximize their own internal interests on the short term.
Bearing this background in mind, in this paper we present some of the inequalities
relating to the health system in Brazil – which have been magnified by the COVID-19
pandemic. We suggest that this demonstrates the negative repercu ssions of a global
economy that has failed to cooperate meaningfully and we argue that now, more than
ever, we need to put in place a more collaborative and egalitarian way of financing the
health systems of the world (Pogge, 2009) and research and investments in a global
public health system. The problem is particularly challenging in developing countries,
like Brazil, where there are high levels of poverty and inequalities. The effects of the
2International Journal of Discrimination and the Law XX(X)

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