International Course on Law and Legal Protection in Natural Disasters

The International Course on Law and Legal Protection in Natural Disasters was organized by the Brookings-LSE Project on Internal Displacement, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and hosted by the International Institute of Humanitarian Law (IIHL) in San Remo, Italy.  

The course gathered 26 participants from 23 countries, representing officials from national disaster management and civil protection agencies (with priority given to countries in the process of drafting or reviewing disaster legislation and policies), representatives from regional organizations and institutions working on regional disaster management issues, representatives of National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, international NGOs and UN agencies.

The course included lectures and expert presentations on existing international norms and regulatory problem areas in disaster response, recovery from disasters and disaster risk reduction. These were followed by intensive work in small groups to apply the relevant tools and normative frameworks to a disaster scenario in a fictitious country. This in turn was followed by participants’ assessment of their own laws and policies through questionnaires designed to look at the ways in which existing national legal frameworks incorporated human rights standards and best practices. At the end of the course, the participants were encouraged to develop personal plans for follow-up work.

The course report details the discussions and speakers on such topics as “Global Trends in Hazards and Vulnerability,” “Legal Issues in Disaster Recovery” and “Domestic Legal Issues in Disaters Rick Reduction,” in addition to presenting action plans by representatives from a number of governments.

Course Participants, 2013