In recent decades, health and the possibility of a healthy life, as a public good, has become one of the fundamental pillars of world governance in the post-Westphalian order. Under current circumstances, we are witnessing the formation of threats and dangers, the contexts and consequences of which represent a completely new challenge. As the COVID19 knows no borders, the ‘globalization of the virus’ is obvious. Coping with a borderless public complication therefore requires borderless governance in order to bring about a global public good, and can better control AIDS, Ebola, SARS, Coronavirus, or ‘old’ infectious diseases such as malaria, smallpox, and tuberculosis.
Infectious diseases have always been and continue to be a serious threat throughout history, especially when the cause is unknown. To counter this threat, existing actors tend to take on new roles and improve their activism. The World Health Organization (WHO), for example, is a global actor, but according to the statute, it is Westphalian rather than post-Westphalian; the WHO reflects the principle of ‘international’ (intergovernmental) governance rather than ‘global’ governance involving other actors, since NGOs and multinational corporations, along with governments, are governed at different scales. In the triple representation of the game between government, market, and civil society, the WHO represents the government, while the market and civil society may represent pharmaceutical companies and NGOs, respectively.
With the expansion of the process of globalization, we are witnessing cross-border and even globalization of diseases and transmission of viruses in the global arena. For instance, the contagious avian influenza disease was a local and regional infectious disease that spread among birds and was transmitted from birds to humans. SARS is another disease that was transmitted in different ways and became one of the regional human diseases. Due to growing air travel and international exchanges, the SARS virus has become a regional challenge with global implications. SARS was the first post-Westphalian disease and marked the transition from public health governance to infectious disease from a traditional Westphalian to post-Westphalian framework. But with the outbreak of the Covid19, it appears that there is still a combination of Westphalian governance (represented by governments) and post-Westphalian governance (represented by civil society and the market) at three national, regional and global levels with a focus on government activism. In fact, although the rapid spread of this virus worldwide can be considered a manifestation of globalization in the 21st century and shows the transition to a post-Westphalian order and beyond borders, but how governments deal with this virus to manage it is completely within Westphalian fits. Now the virus has spread all over the world and there is not a place in the world where this virus has not been spread, but the way of dealing with it has been different in different countries.
Therefore, the purpose of holding the International Conference on ‘Consequences of COVID19 for Different Regions of the World’ is to find out the experiences of other countries and regions in the face of the Corona virus and the impact it has on various economic, political, social, environmental and governance fields of regional studies.
