Analyzing Iceland's Specific Legal Amendments to its Border Control and Civil Protection Acts in 2020-2021: A Unique Framework for Agile Crisis Management

The report focuses on investigating the implementation of the amendments to the temporary Border Control Act (No. 50/2007) and Civil Protection Act (No. 82/2008), which were implemented by Iceland in response to COVID-19 but did not directly concern it. It considers this strategy toward the law as a proactive and directed policy of agile crisis management. The result of the current study in terms of a qualitative, comparative case study of the two legislative tracks is that iterative time-bound amendments in Iceland may not always have been a reactionary mechanism but a dynamic mechanism of rapid calibration of activity, long-term democratic supervision, and flexibility to operate. The report results in the conclusion that this framework provides a generalizable model that can be pursued by small and highly globalized states in the future in case of transnational crises and is aimed at balancing legal authority, adaptive capacity, and democratic accountability.