On September 8th -10th , the legal advisors of 80 National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies gathered in Geneva for their annual meetings with the ICRC and the Federation. Among the topics on their agenda was exploring the Red Cross/Red Crescent approach to legislative advocacy in the areas of disaster management and health emergencies.
Participants concluded that National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies have a clear role to play in providing advice to their governments on the development of law and policy in these areas, though the Movement’s fundamental principle of neutrality places certain limits on how they express themselves in the policy dialogue.
They also identified a number of legal questions of key importance to the Movement, including how domestic laws empower and inform communities about risks, how they can facilitate the work of National Societies and other humanitarian organizations, and how they integrate and coordinate the actions of different social actors in the management of disasters and health emergencies.
The results of these discussions will help guide the development of the initial draft of a new manual for National Societies on legislative issues related to disasters and health emergencies to be completed in 2009.