Facing risks to health security within the framework of the rule of law. Lessons to be learned from COVID-19

This paper highlights how the pandemic caused by COVID-19 constitutes one of the many global risks faced by our societies, one of those risks that have arrived to stay. That, therefore, demands a response out of a state of exceptionality. The paper also warns of the risks and insecurity for fundamental rights posed by the delay in the time of exceptional measures, and advocates regulation by organic law of health emergency situations-the current one or those that we may experience in the future-. The question of how we assess the risks and what responses we regulate in advance to face them constitutes today an imper-ative for the defense of fundamental rights.