ASIL Insight

The tsunami in the Indian Ocean triggered by the massive earthquake on December 26, 2004, caused large-scale death and destruction in many countries and stimulated a significant relief effort from the international community. The unprecedented magnitude of this disaster raises questions about the role of international law with respect to preparing for, detecting, and responding to natural disasters. This Insight considers how international law has been used in connection with natural disasters and whether more active use of international law in this area should be pursued in the wake of the tsunami tragedy.

Disasters are typically categorized as man-made (or technological) disasters and natural disasters. A body of international law has been developed to help states prevent, prepare for, and respond to technological disasters with potential transboundary effects, such as maritime, industrial, and nuclear accidents and emergencies. Many treaties in the area of technological disasters were developed after major incidents, in order to incorporate lessons states learned in handling such disasters. For example, treaties concerning emergencies involving nuclear energy facilities were concluded after the Chernobyl disaster in the former Soviet republic of Ukraine. [1]

Natural disasters often trigger responses that involve many states, international organizations, and non-governmental actors. This multi-jurisdictional and multi-actor context would seem to call for using the tools of international law to help organize and facilitate preparation for, and responses to, natural disasters. Yet, international law has been little used to prepare for tsunami disasters specifically or to respond to natural disasters generally.

Unlike technological disasters, states cannot cooperate and build regimes to prevent some natural disasters, such as earthquakes and tsunamis. At best, states can deploy systems to provide early warning of events with potential to cause disasters and to prepare communities for such events. When disaster-causing events can affect a number of states, incentives exist for states to build multilateral regimes for disaster event alert and preparedness.

Tsunamis can be local, regional, or ocean-wide in their effects. The impact of tsunamis can be reduced by early detection of tsunamigenic seismic activity, dissemination of warnings, and activation of mitigation plans established through preparedness activities. A multinational Tsunami Warning System in the Pacific has functioned in the Pacific Ocean region since the mid-1960s.  Formed in the aftermath of the destructive Pacific-wide tsunami of 1960, it is a multilateral endeavor operating through UNESCO's Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission. [2]

No tsunami alert and preparedness system exists in the Indian Ocean region, despite warnings that the eastern Indian Ocean is extremely vulnerable to seismic activity that could cause tsunamis. [3] For example, Indonesia experienced six destructive local or regional tsunami events between 1977 and 1996. [4]

Building a tsunami alert and preparedness system in the Indian Ocean region may be a high diplomatic priority after the devastation experienced in December 2004. [5] This effort could take different forms, including simply extending or replicating the Tsunami Warning System in the Pacific or elevating tsunami alert and preparedness as an international objective through adoption of a treaty. The treaty approach could provide a way for states vulnerable to tsunamis to establish a comprehensive global approach to tsunami alert and preparedness based on the lessons learned from the Tsunami Warning System in the Pacific.

The importance of international law to the facilitation of disaster relief was recognized at least as early as 1927 in the Convention Establishing an International Relief Union, the preamble of which indicated that the states parties desired "to render aid to each other in disasters, to encourage international relief by a methodical co-ordination of available resources, and to further the progress of international law in this field." [6] The International Relief Union "marked the first and, to date, only instance when states attempted to launch a universal, treaty-based structure for disaster response and prevention . . . [but] [t]he Union never fulfilled its promised and perished along with the League of Nations System." [7]

The state of international law on disaster relief has for many years been considered inadequate. The administrator of the United Nations Development Programme observed in 1977 that many experts had suggested that "a convention is the best means available to resolve the complex tangle of issues surrounding disaster relief[.]" [8] In 2000, the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (International Federation) argued that, despite the existence of some treaty law relating to disaster relief:

At the core is a yawning gap. There is no definite, 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 pull together the disparate threads of existing law to formalize customary law or to expand and develop the law in new ways. . . . There are no universal rules that facilitate secure, effective international assistance, and many relief efforts have been hampered as a result. [9]

To address this situation, the International Federation launched the International Disaster Response Law (IDRL) project in 2000.  The IDRL project has collected and analyzed existing international legal instruments relevant to disaster relief. [10] Key deficiencies identified by IDRL research include regional disparities in the existence of treaties relevant to disaster relief; diversity in the content of treaties relating to disaster relief; "disparate and inconclusive" legal principles on disaster relief; and significant aspects of disaster relief not properly addressed. [11]

Efforts to use international law to facilitate disaster relief appear in treaties on air, maritime, and land transportation and on customs procedures. [12] Regional approaches can be found in disaster-specific agreements, such as the Council of Europe's Agreement on the Prevention of, Protection Against, and Organization of Relief in Major Natural and Technological Disasters (1987) (21 states parties) and the Inter-American Convention to Facilitate Disaster Assistance (1991)(2 states parties). The Tampere Convention on the Provision of Telecommunications Resources for Disaster Mitigation and Relief Operations (1998) (30 states parties), which entered into force on January 8, 2005,  facilitates provision of one kind of disaster relief resource by creating procedures for telecommunications assistance in any disaster setting.

In response to the Indian Ocean tsunami, the IDRL project identified significant disaster relief problems.  The IDRL coordinator argued that "[t]he tsunami operation has once again highlighted the complexities of getting relief across borders in the shortest time and with maximum efficiency. Humanitarian organisations are not only having to cope with damaged infrastructure, they are also dealing with 12 different governments and 12 different sets of customs regulations. Delays in getting aid to those who need it cost lives." [13]

The IDRL project does not expressly advocate the adoption of a global convention on disaster relief but, at present, focuses on identifying ways national and international law can be improved to facilitate better disaster relief. Given the multilateral nature of most serious natural disasters, development of international law on disaster relief may become necessary. The experience of the response to the Indian Ocean tsunami may stimulate such development.

The international legal issues raised by the Indian Ocean tsunami echo concerns voiced in other contexts about the need to rethink concepts of "security" in the face of non-military threats to human well-being. Recently, the UN Secretary-General's High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change made the case for "comprehensive collective security," which the Panel defined as security not only from war but also from poverty, infectious disease, and environmental degradation. [14] Under this perspective, the revision of the International Health Regulations proposed by the World Health Organization and stimulated by the SARS outbreak in 2003 constitutes a potentially new kind of collective security agreement. [15]

The Secretary-General's High Level Panel said that environmental degradation has worsened the destructive potential of natural disasters in recent years. The Panel noted that "[m]ore than two billion people were affected by such disasters in the last decade, and in the same period the economic toll surpassed that of the previous four decades combined." [16] As SARS did in the case of infectious diseases, the tsunami tragedy perhaps raises the need to think about natural disasters through the lens of comprehensive collective security and to focus more attention on governance regimes that will more effectively protect, alert, and provide relief to populations threatened by natural disasters.

About the author:

David P. Fidler is Professor of Law and Harry T. Ice Faculty Fellow at Indiana University School of Law, Bloomington.