How China can be held legally accountable for coronavirus pandemic

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A cover-up and clampdown by the Chinese government in the early weeks of the coronavirus's emergence is raising questions over whether the communist superpower can be held legally accountable.

"Generally countries like China have sovereign immunity and governments cannot be brought to regular courts or held liable regardless of their conduct," Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, an Israel-based attorney who has long specialized in suing terrorist regimes and state sponsors who orchestrate human rights abuses on behalf of victims, told Fox News.

"However, an argument could be made that just like support for terrorism, which is legally actionable, a government that engages in such reckless disregard and negligence and covers up an epidemic which has the potential to spread worldwide could be held legally liable," Darshan-Leitner said. "Cover-ups and deliberate acts to conceal a deadly medical crisis are not [among] the protected acts of a sovereign state or of responsible leaders."

According to Darshan-Leitner, if a private party like a hospital or health care worker of a chemical company had learned of a dangerous and highly contagious disease and then deliberately covered its existence up and concealed it from the public they would clearly face criminal and civil liability.

"Why should a local or national government be any different? Clearly, China signed treaties and had a duty under international law to report the virus and not cover it up," she continued. "China is not to blame for creating the virus but for not sounding the international alarm and trying to conceal it from the world."