Every
year, millions of people fall victim to disasters – in
2002 alone, an estimated 608 million people were affected. Yet
all too often the international community’s response is
confused by a multiplicity of disconnected guidelines, conventions,
treaties and legislation.
For the past two years, since it launched its International
Disaster Response Law (IDRL) Project, the International Federation
has been in the vanguard of attempts to compile and publish
existing international laws and regulations and to evaluate
their effectiveness in humanitarian operations. It has been
seeking to promote respect for these laws and to improve and
develop them where necessary.
Agenda for Humanitarian Action
The findings of the Federation’s IDRL Project are being
discussed at the International Conference of the Red Cross and
Red Crescent in Geneva, and are expected to constitute a significant
item of the Agenda for Humanitarian Action, a document to be
adopted by the Conference setting out goals and mechanisms that
States and the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement
can undertake to protect human dignity.
There is a misconception that IDRL seeks to draw up a single
law governing the international response to disasters outside
conflict. “IDRL is rather a convenient label for a whole
range of treaties, agreements and guidelines. We are not seeking
to draw up a new law, but to promote the implementation of existing
laws and standards,” Victoria Bannon, head of the IDRL
project, said.
She points out that the existing core of IDRL comprises many
kinds of instrument, ranging from international treaties, through
bilateral agreements to non-binding guidelines.
“There are many treaties and laws governing IDRL, and
they are all ‘managed’ by different agencies. There
is a disconnection that results in uncoordinated action.”
Too, often, the IDRL Project report states, governments and
humanitarian workers are ignorant of these various instruments.
Consequently they are rarely used to help those who need them.
National legislation tends to be better known, but often fails
to address the operational challenges of disaster response.
Handbook
Many of the current challenges stem from the fact that the various
instruments are dispersed and rarely, if ever, considered in
their totality, it says.
One helpful tool the Federation would like to see is a handbook
that would provide a quick reference guide to the principles
and norms relevant to disaster situations.
“If humanitarian actors have a code of conduct and a simple
guide to the common rules, they will know immediately, for example,
how to negotiate customs procedures, obtain landing rights at
an isolated airstrip or set up telecommunications equipment,”
Bannon says, adding that such a guidebook would be an equally
useful for tool for governments.
For this is not an academic legal exercise. The fundamental
aim of the IDRL project is to get aid as quickly as possible
to the vulnerable victims of disasters.
The IDRL project has adopted a multi-faceted approach, consisting
of collecting and analysing existing legal and non-legal documents,
field studies to examine the relationship between existing IDRL
and practices on the ground, consultations and advocacy at international
forums, such as the UN General Assembly, and the publication
of materials, the first of which, a CD-Rom, has just been launched.
“There has never been an attempt to collate all these
instruments – that’s why the Federation’s
efforts have been so appreciated. In addition, the Federation
is uniquely well-placed to carry out this project, given its
vast disaster response experience, its proximity to affected
communities and its ability to advocate with governments and
international organisations,” says Chris Lamb, head of
the Federation’s Humanitarian Advocacy department.
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Algerian
Red Crescent volunteers help unload humanitarian aid following
May’s devastating earthquake. After some disasters,
such assistance is held up at customs (p9866)
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A
field hospital treats people injured in the 2001 earthquake
in Gujarat. A simple guide to the instruments governing
disasters could improve the international response to
such catastrophes (p2848)
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Emergency
Response Units, such as this German Red Cross water and
sanitation team in Sudan, rely on getting to the disaster
zone as quickly as possible (p10329)
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