The World Health Organization (WHO) Director General’s recent remarks on COVID-19 emphasized that “All countries must strike a fine balance between protecting health, minimizing economic and social disruption, and respecting human rights”. Human rights frameworks provide a crucial structure that can strengthen the effectiveness of global efforts to address the pandemic. The current COVID-19 outbreak has been described as a pandemic. The global and national COVID-19 responses have presented unique and rapidly-shifting challenges to the promotion and protection of health and of human rights of people around the world. As countries identify ways to address COVID-19, integrating human rights protections and guarantees into our shared responses is not only a moral imperative, it is essential to successfully addressing public health concerns.