Russia's Utilization of the Covid-19 Pandemic: Lockdowns, Re-Sovereignization, and Disengagement from the West

This article discusses the challenges that the COVID-19 pandemic poses to the current concepts of globalization, universality of human rights, and the rules-based international order. This article discusses how Russia has used the COVID-19 pandemic to accelerate its move away from Western ideas and institutions so as to solidify the power of its executive branch. In particular, this article examines the Russian Constitutional Court in its dealings with both the 2020 Russian constitutional amendments and the government's lockdown measures. This article concludes that the Russian Constitutional Court which is supposed to serve as a key guarantor of fundamental rights of citizens against the machinery of the state is becoming increasingly politicized, which threatens the Court's independence.

Russia's desire to strengthen the power of the executive branch, to retreat further into traditional notions of sovereignty, and to move away from international norms and institutions, is not unique. The COVID-19 pandemic has served as a powerful catalyst in magnifying and intensifying the existing divisions in the current international order.