ABA Taps Professor to Examine Quarantine Laws.
Wendy Mariner, Edward R. Utley professor of health law, has been appointed the American Bar Association (ABA) section advisor to the Uniform Law Commission’s Study Committee on Declarations of Quarantine.
The Ebola outbreak in West Africa, and fear that it could spread to the US, prompted judges and lawyers to take a fresh look at states’ quarantine laws.
The Uniform Law Commission, which develops model state legislation to ensure “clarity and stability in critical areas of state statutory law,” created the study committee to explore whether there is a need for uniform state legislation governing when and how quarantines are undertaken, with special attention to job protection and compensation for individuals in voluntary or involuntary quarantine.
Together with her colleagues in the Center for Health Law, Ethics & Human Rights, Mariner studies the constitutionality of quarantine in conditions of uncertainty, and its practical effects on individuals and health professionals. Quarantines are drastic measures, employed rarely—usually in the face of an emergency, Mariner explains. For this reason, “we should be thoughtful about declaring emergencies, because emergencies permit exceptions to the rules.
“If the risk of an emergency continues indefinitely—as with the risk of terrorism or a possible epidemic—then the exception becomes the rule, and the rule of law itself is compromised.”
In addition to her professorship at SPH, Mariner is also a professor in both the School of Law and the School of Medicine, as well as co-director of the JD and master’s in public health (MPH) joint degree program.
She is a member of the governing council of the ABA’s Section of Civil Rights and Social Justice, and the ABA Special Committee on Bioethics and the Law. She has served on numerous other state, national, and international boards and commissions, including the National Institutes of Health AIDS Advisory Committee, the Committee for the International Ethical Guidelines for Biomedical Research Involving Human Subjects, and the Executive Board of the American Public Health Association.
“It is an honor to work with the Uniform Law Commission,” says Mariner. “It also offers a valuable opportunity to translate the Center’s research into effective policy supporting public health and human rights.”