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Wendy Mariner Appointed to ULC Study Committee on Declarations of Quarantine

Professor of Law named American Bar Association section advisor to Uniform Law Commission committee.

Wendy Mariner head shot
Professor Wendy Mariner

Wendy Mariner, professor of law at Boston University School of Law and Edward R. Utley Professor of Health Law, BU’s School of Public Health, has been appointed as the American Bar Association section advisor to the Uniform Law Commission’s Study Committee on Declarations of Quarantine.

The Uniform Law Commission provides states with model legislation that “brings clarity and stability to critical areas of state statutory law.” Members include practicing lawyers, judges, legislators and legislative staff, and law professors appointed by state governments to research, write, and promote uniformity in state law.

Following the outbreak of the Ebola virus in West Africa and the alarm caused by its potential transmission to the United States, public health experts have examined how and when states decide to implement quarantines. In 2014, the Conference of Chief Justices Task Force founded a Pandemic and Emergency Response Task Force charged with creating a guidebook for states seeking to develop procedures for responding to a pandemic emergency. According to the Uniform Law Commission, approximately 10 states have enacted legislation around job protection and compensation for individuals placed under quarantine, but the content of the legislation varies considerably. The Study Committee will consider whether there is “need for and feasibility of enacting uniform or model state legislation concerning a declaration of quarantine, and concerning employment protection and income replacement for those subject to quarantine.”

Mariner has spoken extensively on the legality of quarantining individuals possibly exposed to infection, detailing the fine line between constitutional and unconstitutional medical isolation. She has raised concerns about the potential violation of civil liberties when the risks of an epidemic are uncertain. During the 2014 Ebola outbreak, she noted that the US quarantines could undermine prevention efforts by overestimating the risk to Americans and discouraging health workers from traveling to help stop the outbreak at its source. “We should be careful about declaring emergencies,” she said,“because emergencies permit exceptions to the rules. If the risk of an emergency continues indefinitely, then the exceptions become the rule, and the rule of law itself is compromised.”

Mariner has published more than 100 articles in the legal, medical and health policy literature on patients and consumers’ rights, health care reform, insurance benefits, insurance regulation, and public health, as well as the textbook Public Health Law (2d edition with George Annas). Her research focuses primarily on laws governing health risks, including social and personal responsibility for risk creation in conceptions of insurance, as well as national health systems, including the ACA and ERISA, health information privacy, and population health policy. Professor Mariner has served on state, national, and international boards and commissions, including the Health Information Exchange-Health Information Technology Council Advisory Committee for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the Council of the American Bar Association’s Section of Civil Rights and Social Justice.

Reported by Gianna Fischer (COM’16).

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Wendy Mariner Appointed to ULC Study Committee on Declarations of Quarantine

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