Quarantine

Quarantine

Introduction to Quarantine

Quarantine, in international law, name given to the regulations of a country imposing a period of time during which a ship arriving in port is forbidden to land freight or passengers because it is suspected of being infected with a contagious disease. In municipal law, the term is applied to the sanitary regulations of a state or municipality that restrict the spread of contagious diseases within its own boundaries.

Maritime quarantine regulations were first instituted by Venice in 1348, soon followed by other Mediterranean cities, and were directed against the invasion of pestilence from the East. Marseille established a station in 1383, detaining persons on infected ships for 40, or quaranta, days; from this word arose the term quarantine.

In 1850 delegates from the principal countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea convened in Paris and adopted a code of international sanitary regulations. This code was later generally adopted by all countries and was enforced in their commercial relations with one another. Under its provisions, a ship leaving port is given a clean bill of health or a foul bill, depending upon whether the port from which the ship sails is free from or infected with a contagious disease. A suspected ship entering a port is at once put under quarantine, the period varying in accordance with the character of the contagion feared. In 1952 the World Health Organization, a United Nations agency, standardized this and other conventions in a code accepted by most countries; it also broadcasts relevant information to national health authorities and to ships at sea.” (1)

Quarantine

Embracing mainstream international law, this section on quarantine explores the context, history and effect of the area of the law covered here.

Resources

Further Reading

  • The entry “quarantine” in the Parry and Grant Encyclopaedic Dictionary of International Law (currently, the Encyclopaedic Dictionary of International Law, 2009), Oxford University Press

Resources

Notes and References

Guide to Quarantine


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