Rights, Responsibilities and Disasters: Using the Law to Reduce Disaster Risk in Asia Pacific
25 - 27 June 2024
Keynote Speaker
Lianne Dalziel
Mayor of Christchurch 2013 - 2022
Speakers
Ayşe Mahinur Tezcan
A Post-earthquake analysis of property crimes: The Earthquakes of Kahramanmaraş, Türkiye
On February 6, 2023, a major disaster struck 11 cities in Turkey, killing more than 50,000 people. Earthquakes and similar natural disasters disrupt social order and pave the way for the emergence of criminal behavior. In particular, there is an increase in crimes against property. The crimes of theft, fraud, looting, possession of lost or misappropriated property and violation of residential inviolability are considered within the scope of crimes against property. This study analyzes the crimes against property that occurred after the earthquake in Adıyaman, Gaziantep, Hatay, Kahramanmaraş and Malatya, the 5 provinces most affected by the earthquakes centered in Kahramanmaraş. Using the number of crime investigation files obtained from the Ministry of Justice, the study employs routine activity theory and collective behavior theory, which are theories that provide an understanding of criminal behavior. The study, which uses statistics for the five years before the earthquake and the end of 2023 after the earthquake, provides a comparison in terms of observing the effects of the earthquake. The study shows us that among the 5 provinces, crimes against property increased in all provinces except Hatay, where the most deaths occurred and the most buildings were destroyed in the earthquake, while there was a decrease in Hatay.
Marozane Spamers, Helen Farley, Jayson Ware
Navigating Environmental Justice and Human Rights in Prisons: Challenges and Vulnerabilities
This paper explores the connection between prisons, climate change, and disaster risk in Australasia, focusing on challenges related to environmental justice and human rights. It examines the vulnerability of prison communities, the impact of outdated infrastructure on disaster risk, and the implications for human rights, including issues of torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, and health and safety concerns. It will also consider the environmental risks faced by prisons, such as water table rise, coastal inundation, and extreme weather conditions. Special attention will be given to understanding factors that escalate violence, such as heat stress in prison settings. Overcrowding and under-resourcing also exacerbate vulnerability to climate and environmental hazards.
This paper draws upon international frameworks like OPCAT and the Mandela Rules, as well as domestic human rights and corrections legislation, to analyse the existing regulatory landscape and its effectiveness in addressing the complex challenges at the intersection of prisons, climate change, and environmental justice. Insights from Inspectorate Reports will be used to shed light on the current state of affairs and identify areas for improvement in ensuring safety, well-being, and rights within the prison environment.
James Mehigan, Laura Johnstone
Policing the Canterbury Earthquake Sequence
One of the statutory functions of the New Zealand Police Nga Pirihama o Aotearoa (the Police) is emergency management, such as in the case of natural disasters like earthquakes. Contemporarily, this emergency management function is codified in s 9(h) of the Policing Act 2008. This paper investigates the legitimacy of the Police’s very wide role in natural disaster risk reduction post-event, which tends to be publicly accepted without question. It does so by reflecting on the Canterbury Earthquake Sequence of 2010-2011, and the almost incomprehensibly wide range of roles undertaken by the Police during the aftermath of the events. We question the assumed appropriateness of the level of Police involvement in disaster risk reduction, and reflect on criminological theory which argues that the Police’s involvement in disasters is inherently underpinned by the threat of force to coerce socially ordered behaviour in disordered environments.
Nellie Evison
Health and Safety during Response and Recovery Operations: an Aotearoa New Zealand Case Study
Lifelines Utility workers played an integral role in ensuring the operation of essential services and utilities following the Canterbury Earthquake Sequence. These workers were placed in dangerous and unfamiliar environments with few centralised health and safety laws that could be considered directly applicable to the nature of their working context. This study involved desktop research and analysis of current health and safety laws in Aotearoa New Zealand, in an attempt to understand the protections provided for these workers in the context of the Canterbury Earthquake Sequence. The findings indicated that the current health and safety legislation lacks a contextual applicability to the scenario within which Lifelines entity workers are conducting their operations following a disaster, and the standard provided within the law may not be high enough. The research revealed a heavy reliance on internal regulations, with very little centralised guidance as to recommended health and safety procedure.
Amita Singh
Appropriate Legal Strategies to Sustain Disaster Financing
Disaster Risk Financing is a challenging theme and currently the world’s top priority. One aspect to generate funds is internally from within the country and second is to generate funds from global institutional transactions. The G20 Disaster-Risk Reduction Working Group acknowledges the need for national systems of disaster risk public financing. On these lines the 15th Finance Commission Report (2021-2026) in India recommended one such strategy on federal sharing basis. On the other hand the Asian Development Bank’s Disaster-Risk Financing and Insurance Program(DRFIP) has experimented with some sort of prearranged funds to support several Asia-Pacific countries. The World Bank provoked by the phenomenal devastation of business supply chains post Tsunami had established the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) in 2006. Most of these international financial platforms are global partnerships that help low- and middle-income countries. In any case, risk pooling is emerging as an important disaster-risk transfer mechanism where various stakeholders pool and aggregate risks making premiums more affordable and international capital markets more accessible for countries that may otherwise be excluded. The world today needs a new team of ‘Samaritan Diplomats’ for generating awareness through traditional ethical principles of trust and hand holding of the weak. These principles would help in image building, winning partners and forming alliances which go a long way to strengthening sustainable projects such as the resilient infrastructure and ‘Solar Alliance’ besides creating sturdy platforms during pandemics like the COVID-19. This paper will address many emerging thoughts on financing disaster risk in regions incrementally and centrifugally.
Indah Cahyaning, Belia Ega Avila, Saut Sagala
Disaster Risk Financing and Insurance Landscape in Indonesia
As a country that is vulnerable to geological and hydrometeorological disasters, Indonesia has the Most Average Annual Loss (AAL), which approximately accounts for USD 29 Billion, with agricultural drought losses and floods dominate the AAL in Indonesia (ESCAP, 2019). The Indonesian Government spends around USD 300–500 million every year dealing with the aftermath of disasters, since post-disaster damage accounts for about 0.3% of national GDP. Emphasising the importance of Disaster Risk Financing and Insurance (DRFI) in Indonesia to reduce the loss and damage, the Pooling Fund for Disaster Management was enacted under Presidential Regulation 75/2021. This paper aimed to provide baseline analysis on Indonesian recent state of DRFI regulatory framework, budgetary conditions in Disaster Risk Management (DRM) as well as gaps, challenges and opportunities about the practices of DRFI in Indonesia. Benchmarking the implementation of DRFI will consider lessons learned from Australia, New Zealand and Japan for potential insurance schemes to be adapted. Furthermore, the result of empirical study will be used to structure insurance financing options in Indonesia and other countries in Asia Pacific with similar conditions, consisting of earthquake, flood, and climate and disaster insurance that can be considered by relevant stakeholders for future DRFI development.
Francesca Munerol
Understanding, monitoring and managing natural disaster risk through the lens of forensic data
Jonatan Lassa
Graph Theory and Disaster Management Laws: Results from Indonesia and Australia
In a ruled-based society, laws and regulations are often arranged in hierarchical fashion, from constitutions down to districts and council level regulations. Laws including egal and regulatory documents are good predictors of existing and emerging institutional arrangements for social economic affairs. Using graph theory and network analysis, this paper systematically analsze and visualise the complex structure of networks of law and regulatory documents from 100 jurisdictions from national to sub-national levels in Indonesia. The paper offers non-traditional views and insights from the complex legal structure that serves as predictors of institutional arrangements disaster policy implementation including gaps at four domains: decentralisation, discourse, regulatory quality and policy alignments or compliance. The article also offers new insights and macro and micro level views on the embeddedness of issues of climate change, environment and sustainability in the existing disaster laws and risk reduction policy. Insights from Australian disaster-related legal architecture will also be shared in this draft.
Carolynne Hultquist
Incorporating local data to ensure no one is left behind
Crowdsourced data can be a valuable source of information for decision-making during disasters. Nowadays, citizen generated data are collected in real-time specifically for environmental purposes and, when integrated with other sources, have the potential to improve understanding of impacts to the environment and human activities. Therefore, assessing the validity and usefulness of citizen-contributed data for operational response to hazards needs to be addressed as the data could be used by decision-makers or the public when risks are involved.
Smrithi Talwar
CBDRM law and practice in Vietnam: science-law-practice interfaces in a Vietnamese dam safety project
Vietnam is highly exposed to hydro-meteorological hazards in the Asia-Pacific region. To address this, a 2013 “Law on Natural Disaster Prevention and Control” seeks to institutionalise disaster risk management (DRM) practices across the country. Within this DRM context, the Vietnamese government has a strong focus on strengthening local capacity to prepare for and respond to disasters. A formal Community-based disaster risk management (CBDRM) policy ran from 2009 to 2020 in relation to 6000 of the most vulnerable communities in the country. The next phase of this policy runs from 2021 to 2030.
Translating this legal guidance into strengthened local practice requires a strong role for science advice. CBDRM requires that local communities are able to identify areas of exposure and vulnerability pro-actively, so disaster risk mitigation procedures can be put in place ahead of actual events. Global research has shown that the resilient communities that are enabled by this approach are better placed to address a host of wider development challenges in a locally-led, and locally-relevant, manner.
Our presentation will address how we have been working with local communities in Vietnam to support evidence-based local decision making to mitigate the risk of dam safety failures.
Bhesh Parajuli
Municipal Disaster Risk Governance Assessment Tool: A Self-assessment Guide for Local Level
The 2015 Constitution of Nepal has provisioned disaster risk reduction and management (DRRM) as a sole authority of local government (753 urban and municipalities) and as a shared responsibility amongst all three tiers of government (federal, provincial, and local). The Municipal Disaster Risk Governance Assessment (MDRGA) Tool is now approved by the Government of Nepal (GoN), was developed through a series of consultation with wider DRM stakeholders with the technical support of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) and the Nepal Red Cross Society (NRCS).
This is a self-assessment tool for better understanding and awareness of the risk governance parameters among local leaders and promoting risk-informed planning and budgeting for resilient communities. The tool was already piloted in 18 municipalities during its development process; however, the IFRC and NS will continue to support GoN to roll it out in at least 20 municipalities by 2024 and expand its implementation across 100 municipalities in the coming year through CBDRM Platform (https://cbdrmplatform.org/) members coordinated support. This paper highlights the development of the tool, lessons learned from piloting, and the planned rollout of the tool at the local level.
Marufa Akther
The Impact of New Zealand’s Earthquake Prone Building (EPB) Act: Stakeholders’ perspective in Low Seismic Risk Zones
In New Zealand, the Building (Earthquake-Prone Buildings) Amendment Act 2016, widely referred to as the Earthquake-Prone Building (EPB) Act, is considered a critical framework for mitigating seismic risks across various seismicity zones. There is a limited understanding of how stakeholders in low seismic risk zones (LSRZs) perceive the role of this legal instrument in reducing disaster risk from earthquake events. This study used interviews to understand diverse stakeholder views on the EPB Act. Interview results highlight varied perceptions across stakeholder groups—property owners worry about the economic implications of mandatory retrofitting, local government officials discuss enforcement challenges, and building professionals consider the complexities of upgrading heritage structures. A significant finding is that stakeholders perceive the earthquake occurrence as moderate (rated 4-6 out of 10) but believe the vulnerability of buildings to seismic events is high to very high (rated 6–9 out of 10). This discrepancy underscores that risk zoning based solely on national scale occurrence probability does not adequately reflect the potential risk for the ageing heritage infrastructures of cities such as Dunedin and Oamaru. The research also revealed that the current implementation of the EPB Act might not fully address the localised risk landscape. The privately owned buildings rely solely on an increasingly unstable insurance market. Overall, EPB is not able to address the potential underinvestment in the necessary seismic strengthening of all buildings in LSRZ. The paper proposes a more differentiated approach to applying the EPB law, which could improve its effectiveness. Tailored communication strategies and educational programs are recommended to align stakeholder perceptions with actual seismic risks, fostering a more comprehensive understanding and cooperation. These measures enhance earthquake resilience across New Zealand, ensuring equitable and effective risk reduction outcomes.
Nishat Tarannum
The Study of Bangladesh's Legal and Policy Shortcomings in the Context of Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation
Bangladesh, a low-lying deltaic country located in the South Asian region, is extremely exposed to disasters due to unforeseen catastrophes and anthropogenic factors leading to detrimental climate change, which includes drought causing extreme food insecurity, landslides causing human displacement, along with sea level rise resulting in extensive ecological havoc of Sundarban and cyclones. subsequently conforming with the Sendai Framework, UNFCCC Bangladesh has enacted DMA (2012), SOD (2010), and (NPDM) (2021-2025) to incorporate DRR and CCA. Thus, this paper explores key legal loopholes of the DMA as according to this act, there is insufficient collaboration among local and national level organizations, insufficient stake holders’ accountability, fund misappropriation also the act's silence on internally displaced people is an infringement of the rights-based approach. Furthermore, the excess authority granted to the Deputy Commissioner violates both the procedural justice system and the right of access to justice because any injured party cannot bring a lawsuit without pursuing it through the DC. Besides that, this statute solely addressed pre- and post-disaster cases, not stressing disaster risk reduction. As a result, the legal loopholes result in a violation of the internationally recognized principles of inter-generational equality, due diligence, sustainable development, and precautionary principle.
Sajan Neupane
Community-led decision-making for inclusive disaster governance: A case study from Nepal
The Constitution of Nepal 2015 established a foundation for participatory and inclusive decision-making at all levels of government in the country. The Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Act of 2017 provided opportunities for community leadership in inclusive and participatory decision-making at the local government level. The Local Disaster and Climate Resilience Plans thus allow communities to take the lead on planning, assessment, development, and implementation of local disaster management plans. In this process, two major steps must be taken to ensure that vulnerable, marginalised and affected communities are engaged and participate in developing an inclusive plan designed to mitigate the risks and enhance the community's preparedness. Despite the existence of these practices, challenges still occur about meaningful participation and decision-making. The weak monitoring and evaluation of the plans, inadequate budget, lack of continuity of activities, and the absence of periodic updates to these plans hinder the achievements that have been acquired. This presentation will examine the key aspects of community engagement in the context of inclusive disaster governance, with a particular focus on the challenges encountered in Nepal.
Priti Pohekar
Empowering Vulnerability: Inclusive Practices in Disaster Risk Reduction and Management for Physically and Mentally Challenged Persons
Disability is a significant hurdle to living and survival, with stark disparities between developed and developing nations. Vulnerable individuals often face discrimination across various facets of life, including access to basic needs, services, education, employment, and earning opportunities. Despite governmental policies/acts aimed at mainstreaming the vulnerable, discrimination and exclusion persist, especially in disaster management where disabled individuals are often overlooked.
This paper examines the impact of disasters on physically and mentally challenged persons, emphasizing their inclusion in disaster risk reduction and management. It explores concept of disability, highlighting the multidimensional nature of impairments and societal barriers. The Rights of Persons with Disabilities(RPD) Act, 2016, in India classifies disabilities into various categories, emphasizing the diverse challenges faced by individuals.
The social attitude towards disabled persons, historically marked by discrimination and neglect, is slowly evolving towards inclusion and recognition of their rights. However, challenges such as societal stigmatization, inadequate infrastructure, and limited access to essential services persist.
The study underscores the critical need for disability-inclusive disaster management, citing global frameworks like the UN Convention on RPD, the Sendai Framework, and efforts in India such as the National Disaster Management Policy and the (RPD) Act, 2016. Despite these efforts, the study reveals gaps in awareness, preparedness, and inclusion of disabled persons in disaster planning and response.
Marlon Era
The roles of elderly population during disaster in southern city Philippines: Burden or benefit?
The bulk of the regions in the Philippines are prone to natural disasters. These are also the regions that are home to the country's largest populations of people with low income and a big proportion of elderly residents. Because the majority of the older population lives in the Visayas, which is an area that is frequently struck by natural disasters, it is somewhat more difficult to make preparations. The study aims to determine whether the age of families in the Philippines and their income status have an impact, either favorably or adversely, on their preparedness and response. An in-depth interviews were conducted with elderly residents of the two barangays that have been selected. The study reveals that senior citizens in the city served as volunteers for food relief repacking, psycho-social interventions, counselling, language interpretation etc. The study further shows that the senior citizens specially the able bodied should not be left behind as they can contribute in reviewing the definition of vulnerable groups that regard elderly (automatically) as victim of disaster rather than an able bodied volunteer.
Meenal Nand, Febi Dhwiramadi, Connie Gan, Masoud Mohammadnezhad
Advancing Inclusive Disaster Risk Reduction (iDRR) Efforts among People with Special Healthcare Needs (PSHCNs) in Fiji Islands
Disasters pose significant challenges for vulnerable groups, particularly People with Special Health Care Needs (PSHCNs), who frequently encounter increased risks and barriers to accessing Primary Health Care (PHC) services. In context of Fiji Islands, a Small Island Developing State (SIDS) where disasters are prevalent, there is a pressing need to advance Inclusive Disaster Risk Reduction (IDRR) activities to meet the specific health needs, barriers, and challenges experienced by PSHCNs in local communities. The research employs a Community Needs Assessment by applying mixed-methods approach, combining quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis methods which will be used in advancing IDRR strategies. The quantitative secondary data from Ministry of Health & Medical Services (MoHMS) on PSHCNs will be analysed using statistical analysis. The qualitative approach will utilise observations, in-depth interviews, and focus group discussions with thematic analysis. Key findings will shed insight into PSHCNs' specific vulnerabilities and resilience elements in context of disasters, like access to healthcare services, communication obstacles, mobility issues, and socioeconomic disparities with identifying limitations in existing DRR policies and practices in Fiji, suggesting opportunities for improvement in the IDRR framework. Thus, assisting PHC providers, policymakers, and DRR agencies in formulating a Community-based DRR framework to enhance IDRR efforts.
Gaurika Chugh
Internal Displacement, Disasters and Climate Change: Examining the legal framework for Disaster induced internal displacements in South Asia
Globally, there has been a significant increase in the number of internal displacements caused due to disasters. The year 2022 was unprecedented as it as it broke all records and internal displacements figured at 60.9 million across 151 countries which is a 60 per cent increase and also the highest ever recorded. As per the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMP) Global report 2023, the number of displacement caused due to disasters (32.6 million) were much higher when compared to the displacement caused by conflicts (28.3 million). Amongst the regions worldwide, South Asia (12.5 million) has recorded the highest number of internal displacements in 2022 due to disasters followed by East Asia & Pacific (10.1 million), Sub-Saharan Africa (7.4 million), Americas (2.1 million), Middle-East and North Africa (305000) and Europe and Central Asia (107000).
The traditional international legal law for displacement was the 1951 convention on the Status of Refugees, also known as the Refugee Convention. The scope of the Refugee Convention was however limited as this international legal framework applied to individuals who have “well founded fear of being persecuted on grounds of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion”, and who have taken refuge outside their country of nationality or residence. This convention fails to address the plight of those who have taken shelter in their own country. To deal with the limits of the Refugee Convention, the United Nations in 1998 drafted the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacements which comprises of the international human rights and humanitarian laws related to internal displacement. Whenever a disaster strikes the local populations are displaced and in the absence of a robust legal framework, the state comes into action to provide for adhoc arrangements to deal with the crisis. This paper aims to critically examine the legal framework for disaster induced displacement and to understand how it has been integrated into disaster law and policy framework in the South Asia region that is grappling with the unprecedented rise in the number of internal displacements.
Holly Faulkner
Response vs Recovery: legal challenges for long-term displacement
Annick Masselot, Silke Clausing
Responding to gender-based violence with disaster law in New Zealand
International and New Zealand experience has shown that gender-based violence increases following disasters. While New Zealand has developed a legal framework to address disaster responses and has adopted separate law and policy on gender violence, the two legal frameworks do not intersect. The paper argues that New Zealand legislation have therefore failed to recognise and target increased gender violence following disasters. The paper considers the international disaster risk response legal framework to support recommendations to allow New Zealand law to better address family violence after disasters.
Ibnu Sitompul, W. John Hopkins
Can the 'ASEAN Way' adapt? Preventing Transboundary Haze Pollution in Southeast Asia through regional co-operation
Since 1976, the relationship of ASEAN member states has been formally guided by the ASEAN Way. This principle which has been part of ASEAN practice since its establishment in 1967 emphasises soft enforcement of regional norms and continues to guide the relationship between ASEAN member states through consultation and consensus (musyawara and mufakat). Such conflict avoidance is at the core of ASEAN’s dispute resolution and decision-making processes has served ASEAN well. As it heads towards its sixth decade, the principle has been central to ASEAN’s success in establishing itself as a regional bloc, second only to the European Union in its influence and effectiveness. It has successfully advanced regional co-operation across a number of field, include Disaster Risk Reduction.
However, despite its success, the ASEAN Way's emphasis on state sovereignty, non-intervention, and consensus-based dispute resolution has meant that in some areas, progress has been limited. One example of this is the field of environmental disaster prevention more specifically the issue of transboundary haze pollution. In this example, the presence of the ASEAN Way has weakened a number of ASEAN agreements and implementation strategies, such as the 2002 ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution (AATHP). It is the premise of this presentation that the AATHP example shows the limits of this misapplication and that to resolve it, ASEAN member states need to distinguish between the application of the ASEAN Way principle in political/cultural and legal matters.
Pratish Raj
The Foundations of an Effective Disaster Risk Management System: An Assessment of the Fijian Legal Framework
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) has pioneered research and developed recommendations for how domestic instruments can be the foundation for a comprehensive disaster risk management (DRM) system. IFRC’s 2024 Disaster Risk Governance Guidelines consolidates their research and recommendations into a single document which offers guidance on building robust DRM frameworks, providing key insights into effective DRM practices and outlines strategies to establish DRM policies that ensure comprehensive risk reduction and effective disaster response. The consolidated Guideline is an ideal tool for benchmarking domestic legal frameworks. Following the devasting Tropical Cyclone Winston in 2016, discussion on updating Fiji’s legislative framework gained momentum. Fiji has a 2018-2030 National Disaster Management Policy in place, which also recognised the need to update its 1995 law. Although Fiji is in the process of amending its existing law, this paper takes an explorative approach to benchmark the Foundations of an Effective DRM System to IFRC’s consolidated Guidelines. It utilises the checklist to assess Fiji’s current legal framework and reflects on the progress made by consolidating the recommendations under this theme. The project also highlights that updating DRM laws takes time, even when States are willing to align their laws to international standards.
Rachael Evans
More than just a civil defence hub: Ngāi Tahu involvement in the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery as a model for disaster recovery
Following the CES, the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Act 2011 (CER Act) was enacted. Section 11 of the CER Act named named Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu (TRONT) as a partner in the reovery with equal status to local and regional councils. Mana whenua, through consultancy Matapopore, had has a role in key central city projects. This poster outlines some of these projects, and argues that iwi and hapu have more to offer in disasters thatn just being an emergency repsonse hub. The s 11 role has demonstrated iwi and can be strong partners in recovery as well. A true Te Tiriti partnership should operate both in normal times and in disaster.
Brandy Alger
Co-Designing Community Disaster Preparedness: Tools of Engagement
According to the United Nations Disaster Risk Resilience agency, 90–100 medium to large-scale disasters occurred annually between 1970– 2000, but since 2001 the number has increased to 350–500 on average. However, despite the increase in disaster events, there has not been an associated increase in community preparedness and mitigation including in places and communities who have experienced previous and repeated disasters. Historically, disaster risk reduction efforts in Aotearoa New Zealand have predominantly followed a top-down, expert-driven, one-way approach to communicating preparedness with limited impacts on preparedness, resulting in 25–50% of the public suggesting they are prepared. Co-design is often cited as an approach for long-term sustainable change and could be applied to the preparedness context. Currently, co-design is not widely used in Disaster Risk Reduction contexts and little research has been done locally on this aspect. This proposed research will investigate the ability to use co-design as a method of increasing community preparedness within a specific Aotearoa New Zealand hazardscape, and the benefits and challenges of this method. The city of Invercargill in New Zealand is chosen as a case-study to determine if preparedness can be improved by using a co-design process and which elements influence change.
Sosefina Paletaoga, Christine Nurminen
Tuakana/Teina: Relationship responsibilities of Samoan and Tongans to Maori and Te Tiriti o Waitangi during Auckland disasters
This abstract aims to address a gap in literature concerning relationships between Pacific peoples and Maori in the dialogue about disasters reduction, and to also further the engagements of the humanitarian/international development community in engagements with Te Tiriti o Waitangi. There is a tendency for research on Maori and Pacific peoples to focus regularly on negative statistics i.e. education, health, poverty and as a result the research does not reach to the places where we help ourselves and each other. Recognising this gap in researc allow us to examine not only the complexities of Pacific-Maori relationships in Aotearoa NZ in order to propose engagement strategies with Pacific peoples (non-Maori) can use with regard to te Tiriti o Waitangi and to have truthful conversations about power and influence. We will speak to our Samoan and Tongan experiences as Auckland residents.
Sulaiman Sarwary
The common law 'duty to consult' and its chilling influence on public engagement in New Zealand Recovery planning
This paper explores the significant impact of the common law duty to consult on public engagement provisions in New Zealand. Originating from the ancient concept of natural justice in the English common law, this principle ensures that individuals or parties facing legal proceedings have the right to be informed about the case against them and have a right to a hearing (Cooper v Wandsworth Board of Works; R. v. Chancellor of Cambridge -Dr. Bentley's Case). In New Zealand, this principle is manifested through the ‘public notice and comment’ approach, particularly in long term planning processes.
Natalie Baird
Disasters, Human Rights, and the Universal Periodic Review
The United Nations Human Rights Council’s primary monitoring mechanism, the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), is intended to improve the human rights situation on the ground in member states. The UPR mechanism has particular value in parts of the world that lack a regional human rights framework, such as the Asia Pacific region. One of the strengths of the UPR is that it enables high-level oversight of the full human rights situation within each UN member state. On occasion, this results in direct recommendations to states on the human rights impacts of disasters and measures for disaster risk reduction. For example, states have been urged to establish coordinated disaster risk management strategies, share their experiences in disaster risk management, and adopt gender-responsive and disability-inclusive approaches to disaster risk reduction consistent with the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030. This paper examines these and other recommendations on the human rights impacts of disasters and disaster risk reduction which have emanated from the UPR mechanism. In particular, it considers the potential for the UPR to contribute to the implementation of the Sendai Framework and the wider development of international disaster law.
Fia Hamid-Walker
Ensuring DRR accountability: the Possibility of Integrating the ILC Draft Articles on the Protection of Persons in the Event of Disasters (‘Draft Articles’) with the UN Human Rights Treaties Bodies
This presentation will discuss the possibility of integrating Articles 5 and 9 of the Draft Articles with the established international human rights mechanism, such as the UN Human Rights Treaty Bodies. Article 9 on DRR put legal duty on the States to collect and disseminate disaster risk information. It calls for accountability for disaster risk creation and governance at the national, regional and global. Article 5 serves as a reminder of the duty of States to ensure compliance with all relevant human rights obligations in all cycles of disaster management. A problem arises when Article 5 is only included as "a reminder" for States to comply with their legal obligations. The ILC's engagement in human rights protections mostly occurred in the drafting discussion of Article 9. I argue that drafting Article 5 can be improved by removing the words "entitled" into "have their fundamental human rights" protected and respected by the established international human rights law. The express insertion of human rights protection will further strengthen the DRR accountability mechanism and the possibility of collaborating with UN Human Rights Treaty Bodies, or the International Court of Justice, for the jurisprudential development of International Disaster Law.
Raymond Zingg
IFRC Regional Anticipatory Action Coordinator and AA TWG Co-Chair
Marco Toscano-Rivalta
Chief, UNDRR Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific
Padmini Nayagam
IFRC Disaster Law Adviser
Exsley Taloiburi
Deputy Director, Disaster & Community Resilience Programme, Pacific Community (SPC)
Finau Heuifanga Leveni
IFRC Regional Disaster Law Coordinator
Gabrielle Emery
Head of Pacific Subregional Office, UNDRR
Jonathan Tafiariki
Director, National Disaster Management Office, Solomon Islands
John Hopkins
Director, LEAD Institute, Faculty of Law | Kaupeka Ture, Te Whare Wānanga of Waitaha | University of Canterbury
Ernest Gibson
IFRC Pacific Disaster Law and Advocacy, Senior Officer
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