On 17 April 2024, the Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs and United Nations Legal Counsel, Mr. Miguel de Serpa Soares, made several brief opening remarks at a panel entitled “20 Years After the Tsunami: Revisiting the International Law Commission’s Draft Articles on the Protection of Persons in the Event of Disasters”. The panel was organized by the Permanent Mission of the Philippines, the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, and the Asian African Legal Consultative Organization, with a view to providing delegations in New York with contextual information relating to the recommendation of the International Law Commission that a treaty be concluded on the basis of the draft articles, and which will be the subject of consideration by the Sixth Committee at the seventy-ninth session of the General Assembly, in October 2024.
The Legal Counsel recalled that the provision and coordination of humanitarian assistance to persons affected by such disasters continued to be a major component of the work of the United Nations. He observed that it was somewhat less appreciated that the serious disruption of the functioning of society caused by major disasters also had a legal dimension. Disasters place great strain on national legal systems – sometimes to the breaking point. At the same time, it was important to understand that law could also be part of the solution. In modern societies, the response of the state to a major crisis, including that triggered by the onset of a disaster, was usually undertaken on the basis of existing law and legal authority, as well as through institutions established by national legislation. In many important ways, legal preparedness, in the sense of putting into place the necessary laws, regulations and institutions to provide a robust and adequate response to the onset of a major disaster, was itself an important component of risk reduction. He observed further that the work being undertaken by the Sixth Committee on the draft treaty was an example of a growing interest among international lawyers in developing a body of rules regulating the provision of humanitarian assistance following the onset of disasters outside of the context of armed conflict – an international humanitarian law for disasters.
