‘Individual sovereignty’ in pandemic times – A contradiction in terms?

During the Covid-19 pandemic, appeals to ‘individual sovereignty’ have brought together a wide range of political actors across Europe, united in their rejection of face masks, ‘social distancing’, and other forms of state-imposed regulation of behavior and mobility. Opposition to state efforts to govern the spread of the pandemic has created, indeed, the most unlikely of coalitions—from anarchists and natural health proponents to anti-vaxxers and libertarians of all stripes (from the radical-ecological to the right-nativist)—all mobilizing around a purported defense of ‘personal freedoms’ and ‘individual rights’ against the sovereign power of states. In this piece, we take to task the notion of ‘individual sovereignty’ which has been invoked by these movements to contest the pandemic powers of the state. Our aim is to point out some fundamental contradictions that underpin such claims-making, from a legal and political-geographic point of view.