International legal scholarship dedicated to COVID-19 has been largely limited to descriptions of relevant legal instruments and possible remedies offered by the latter. A characteristic common to most contributions has been the remarkable lack of anything that could be described as 'intellectual' if one means by 'intellectual' the quality of a work that furthers one's understanding beyond what should be obvious to any decently trained international legal professional capable of competently reading and interpreting legal materials. The objective of this short essay is to reflect on some conditions that make this reality possible or even unavoidable and conclude with a proposition.