COVID-19 vaccination in the national security system of the Russian Federation: coordination of private and public interests

Abstract

The subject. Having a proven positive social and economic effect, vaccination remains one of the most important institutions in the system of public safety. The development of this institution requires a rational legal support, considering not only current epidemic process, but also potential threats of bioterrorism and the development of biological weapons. In this light, effective legal regulation of vaccination measures, determination of their desirable forms and scope of the population coverage, as well as cooperation between citizens and the State in ensuring epidemiological safety become a matter of paramount importance.The purpose. The authors propose to discuss two issues: the limits of the possibility of introducing the institution of mandatory vaccination and the issue of legal assistance for the population to participate in vaccination programs in order to achieve the maximum possible coverage.The methodology. The article employs a comprehensive approach which combines formal interpretation and comparative analysis of legal acts and courts decisions with the insights from sociology, behavioral sciences and discourse analysis. The article focuses on the international and national standards of regulation of the vaccination by the means of public and private law in order to achieve herd immunity.Our analysis of the vaccination institute place in the legal system demonstrates that this institution can be included in a row of disciplinary, coercive and binding institutions for citizens prescribing mandatory participation. However, its coercive potential is relatively small and is limited to certain segments of the society that are of strategic importance for ensuring the epidemiological safety. The article posits that such groups remain in the legal field of exceptions, whereas in general, the vaccination institute presumes that the mandatory component is prescribed primarily to the state, not the citizens. And therefore, the citizen's participation in vaccination has the character of an individual rational choice.Conclusions. Our analysis shows that the law on vaccination should be focused on the facilitating socially desirable individual choice rather than binding norm prescription. In this area, the main tasks of legal regulation are establishment of an adequate system of accounting and distribution of individual risks, as well as fair compensation for possible damages during vaccinations. The second main direction of legal development is overcoming information asymmetry in the situation of individual decision-making in order to reduce the shortage of reliable data and to ensure effective communication within an expert community, the state and the person. We propose that this development contributes to the transformation of a purely legal norm on vaccination into a social and cultural one and strengthens the cooperative strategies of citizens in the fight against vaccine-controlled diseases.