COVID-19 quarantine in Taiwan: from 'success story' to perilous deprivation of liberty.

While the world praised Taiwan for its exemplary management of the COVID-19 pandemic, a debate on its compliance with rule of law and human rights was shadowed. This manuscript examines the stringent policy of mandatory quarantine and isolation in Taiwan through the lens of personal liberty and argues that despite its effectiveness for public health, it was disproportionate, arbitrary and likely amounting to the ill-treatment of quarantined persons. Notwithstanding its implications for coronavirus policies elsewhere, the legal ramifications of Taiwan's lesson are also vital for scholarly debate on the limits of the established international human rights framework during the time of the pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]