Hindsight is 2020: Lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic for future human rights research

Abstract The global COVID-19 pandemic affected much of the world’s human rights for 2020 and 2021 and will continue to have human rights ramifications for years to come. While many things have fundamentally changed due to the pandemic, COVID-19 has also shined a spotlight on certain realities about the existing international human rights regime that may have been missed before. This concluding article to the special issue focuses on four realities that have become evident during the COVID-19 pandemic and discusses the implications of these realities on the next generation of human rights research. Understanding the future of global human rights, including the right to health, requires the holistic and long-term approach suggested by Chiozza and King, incorporating lessons learned from the current pandemic in ways that will help us predict and solve future human rights challenges.