Human Rights in the Context of Disasters: The Special Session of the UN Human Rights Council on Haiti

Abstract

The Thirteenth Special Session of the Human Rights Council (HRC) held under a theme “The Support of the Human Rights Council to the Recovery Process in Haiti after the Earthquake of January 12, 2010: A Human Rights Approach” is a significant culmination of a trend that has increasingly highlighted the utility of a human rights approach to disaster response, recovery, and reconstruction. As the title of the meeting suggests, it had two broad objectives: (1) garnering the necessary political support for the recovery and reconstruction effort and (2) reinforcing certain principles that will serve as tools for integrating human rights in disaster response and humanitarian operations on the ground. It, thus, sends a powerful political message to both governments, United Nations bodies and others concerned with the need to robustly integrate human rights in disaster response and recovery. More specifically, it will support operational activities of UN humanitarian and human rights bodies.

Numerous initiatives and developments of soft-laws have been undertaken in recent past that seek to address some of the most pressing issues stemming from disasters. The General Assembly, for example, has adopted a number of key resolutions on the topic. The International Law Commission (ILC) is currently considering the possibility of developing and codifying international law applicable to the protection of persons during disasters (ILC 2008). Both the International Federation for Red Cross and Red Crescent (IFRC) and the International Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction are underscoring the importance of developing legal norms not only for effective humanitarian response but also for reducing vulnerability to disasters and mitigating their consequences. HRC’s role in legal development on this topic has so far been indirect. It was the special procedures particularly the Representatives of the Secretary General on the Human Rights of the Internally Displaced Persons (RSG) who, through his reports to the Council and engagement with UN organs and humanitarian organizations, helped elaborate a set of applicable operational principles and guidelines.

The Council’s engagement on the topic of disasters encourages the Council to work towards the fulfillment of its mandate of ensuring the mainstreaming of human rights within the United Nations system. It presents an opportunity for the Independent Expert on the situation of human rights in Haiti (Independent Expert) to play a catalyst role in ensuring that a human rights approach is integrated in operational activities implemented by UN organizations and others. The resolution adopted during the Thirteenth Special Session importantly recognizes the operational involvement of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in protection activities on the ground (HRC 2010). There is no doubt that such recognition will be quite useful for the OHCHR that is expanding its field presence covering a plethora of protection activities. Following the earthquake in Pakistan in 2003 and the Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2004, OHCHR had started giving attention to the relationship between human rights and natural disasters. Though its early efforts focused on advocacy and standard settings, the Office has increasingly become engaged in operational activities in the field including in the context of postdisaster recovery and reconstruction. By critically reviewing HRC’s Thirteenth Special Session and the resolution adopted during the meeting, this essay examines the implications of these developments for the protection of human rights in the context of disasters.