18 March 2021
The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) has written to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Simon Coveney, calling on him to consider rights before supporting the plan to bring in vaccine certificates for travel across the EU. In the letter we outline our concerns that vaccination passports could impact many of our rights, including equality and non-discrimination, freedom of movement, privacy, and bodily integrity. We call on government to commit to not using such a system within Ireland.
Executive Director, Liam Herrick, said:
“There are many reasons why people cannot or do not want to receive vaccines – including because of a medical condition or lack of access to the vaccine. In Ireland we have not gone down the route of mandatory vaccinations, but vaccine passports would effectively be mandatory vaccination by the back door. That has huge knock-on implications for our rights, creating a two-tier society.”
If people cannot receive the vaccine because of disability or medical conditions, a vaccine passport will exclude them from society, restrict their freedom of movement, and constitute indirect discrimination. If the pass is based in a digital app, it will discriminate against people living in “digital poverty” or those unable to use digital devices. That is not even to mention the huge swathes of the population who simply cannot access the vaccine because there isn’t enough supply.
We further identify that infrastructure put in place to manage the pass system will be difficult to roll back and could go on to form the basis of wider migration controls based on health status. Such invasions of our privacy should be considered with the worst authoritarian leaders in mind.
In relation to international travel, we identify serious human rights challenges with any system of Covid vaccine certificates or passports, particularly in the context of the present shortage of supply of Covid-19 vaccines. We call on government to strenuously object to this at EU level. We would also call on the Irish Government to commit to not using such a system in respect of accessing goods and services within Ireland.
ENDS/
Find the full letter here: https://www.iccl.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/ICCL-letter-to-Foreign-Affairs-re-vaccine-passports.pdf
The World Health Organisation has said: “At the present time, it is WHO’s position that national authorities and conveyance operators should not introduce requirements of proof of COVID-19 vaccination for international travel as a condition for departure or entry, given that there are still critical unknowns regarding the efficacy of vaccination in reducing transmission. In addition, considering that there is limited availability of vaccines, preferential vaccination of travellers could result in inadequate supplies of vaccines for priority populations considered at high risk of severe COVID-19 disease. WHO also recommends that people who are vaccinated should not be exempt from complying with other travel risk-reduction measures.”
The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) is Ireland’s oldest independent human rights campaigning organisation. We monitor, educate and campaign to secure human rights for everyone in Ireland.
For comment: Liam Herrick
For media queries: sinead.nolan@iccl.ie