16 March 2015
A number of national and international actors are currently gathered in the Japanese city of Sendai for the United Nations Third World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction. The Conference assesses ten years of global cooperation to curb the impact of disasters, and aims to update and create an effective global prevention framework that utilises a variety of sectors. (more…)
Source: UN News Centre | Sendai: UN disaster risk reduction conference key to future sustainable development agenda
4 December 2013
In the aftermath of a disaster, affected States need to address its material consequences. For this purpose, aid is normally forthcoming from other States, international organizations and Non-Governmental Organizations. In practice, however, this foreign aid is not always accepted. And even if external assistance is agreed to, as the Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) put it in 2000: ‘There is no definitive, broadly accepted source of international law which spells out legal standards, procedures, rights and duties pertaining to disaster response and assistance. No systematic attempt has been made to put together the disparate threads of existing law, to formalize customary law or to expand and develop the law in new ways.’
In this ‘yawning gap’, as the IFRC labeled it, stepped the International Law Commission (ILC or Commision) in 2006 when, in fulfillment of its Charter and Statute mandate and on the proposal of the United Nations (UN) Secretariat it included the topic ‘Protection of persons in the event of disasters’ in its program of work. (more…)
7 November 2013
Date:
7 November 2013
Location:
Faculty of Law, University of Amsterdam
Oudemanhuispoort 4-6
Room A009
Time:
15:30-17:00
On Thursday 7 November 2013, Dr. Eduardo Valencia-Ospina will give a lecture entitled: ‘The ILC Work on the Protection of Persons in the Event of Disasters’.
Dr. Eduardo Valencia-Ospina is member of the International Law Commission (ILC) and the United Nations ILC Special Rapporteur on the Protection of Persons in the Event of Disasters. (more…)