At its annual session in Geneva this July, the International Law Commission (ILC) advanced on several new articles for its “Draft Articles on the Protection of Persons in the Event of Disasters,” focusing mainly on how disaster assistance by actors other than the affected state should be managed.
The ILC is a UN body of legal experts elected by states to promote the “progressive development of international law and its codification.” It has been working on its “draft articles” concerning disasters since 2007. It has not yet decided whether those draft articles will eventually be presented to states as a draft treaty or as some other form of guidance document.
At this session, the ILC took up the fifth report of Special Rapporteur Eduardo Valencia-Ospina, which commented on state responses to articles provisionally adopted by the ILC in prior sessions and proposed several new articles for review. Summary records of the open session portions of that debate can be found here.
Participants in the debate discussed states’ generally negative responses at the UN’s 6th Committee in 2011 to the ILC’s query whether international law imposes a general obligation on states to offer disaster assistance when requested. They also discussed the range of reactions received concerning whether a state is under a duty to seek assistance when a disaster situation exceeds its own capacities (as asserted in a draft article the ILC provisionally adopted last year). Several ILC members presented contrasting views of their own on this question. Participants also discussed a suggestion by a member that the ILC develop a model status-of-forces agreement for military assistance in the event of disasters.
In closed session, a drafting committee provisionally adopted five new articles, available here. In summary, these articles provide as follows:
- Article 5 bis defines “cooperation”, providing further specificity to a state’s duty to cooperate with other disaster responders, as asserted in Article 5.
- Article 12 sets out a right of various actors to offer disaster assistance to an affected state
- Article 13 asserts that states may impose certain conditions on the provision of external disaster assistance.
- Article 14 requires the affected state to take measures in a number of areas to facilitate the access of external assistance.
- Article 15 describes how external assistance should be terminated.
At the end of the session, the ILC plenary took note of the above articles. A report of the session and the new articles will reviewed by states at the Sixth Committee later this year.
For more information about the ILC’s project and progress see the dedicated page on the Disaster Law Programme website here and the ILC’s own website here.