The COVID-19 Crisis, Human Rights and Unfair Models of Production: The Case of Migrant Workers in the Agri-food Sector in European Countries

This paper provides a critical comparative analysis of relevant EU and national emergency legal measures and responses adopted during the current pandemic to address migrants’ access to essential services and benefits, focusing on migrants’ working and living conditions in the agricultural sector. As is known, the Covid-19 crisis has raised several legal issues, within several fields of law, from human rights to market regulation3. In this paper, by taking into account the recent development of the pandemic and consequent measures to address it (including vaccination), we explore to what extent the current health emergency may constitute an opportunity for a European and national rethinking of the dominant socio-economic model of production, and an enforcement of the rights of migrant persons, or if it instead only fosters inequalities by exposing persons in conditions of vulnerability (in particular many migrant persons) to the risk of being subject to further forms of discrimination and fundamental rights violations.