Since 2001, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) has been undertaking research, consultations and technical support on issues related to the law of disasters. For most of that time, its focus has been on “international disaster response laws, rules and principles” (IDRL), in other words, the regulation of international assistance in the case of non-conflict disasters. In recent years, however, it has also started to expand its focus to other issues related to disaster law.
In 2007, the 30th International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent adopted the “Guidelines for the domestic facilitation and facilitation and regulation of international disaster relief and initial recovery assistance” (also known as the “IDRL Guidelines”). The IDRL Guidelines are recommendations to states on how to prepare their domestic legal and institutional frameworks to handle the most common regulatory problem areas with regard to international relief. The International Conferences’ resolution called on states to use the Guidelines to strengthen their national legal, policy and institutional frameworks and invited the IFRC and National Societies to assist them in doing so. In 2011, the 31st International Conference reiterated the urgency for all states to make use of the IDRL Guidelines. It also invited the IFRC and National Societies to broaden the areas of support they provide to states to additional areas of law and disasters. The programme changed its name in early 2012 to the "Disaster Law Programme", to reflect its evolving focus.
The disaster law programme is one of the MENA DM Unit’s strategic priorities listed in the DMU long term planning framework 2011-2015, which includes work on the promotion and implementation of activities related to strengthening the legal basis for responding to disasters, including facilitating and regulating international assistance in cases of disasters. To start working to achieve this goal; IFRC will contract a consultant for a specific period of this year (with generous support from Norwegian Red Cross) to conduct an analytical study on the laws of disasters in the Middle East and North Africa region, and then to organize a regional workshop in addition to more tasks according to terms of reference.
The study will be prepared in Arabic. In order to receive more information about the position and to request the ToR, please send an email to hr.mena@ifrc.org
To apply, please send an updated CV and a covering letter to the following email address: hr.mena@ifrc.org no later than May 15, 2013.