Can human
rights
I
n recent years we have faced many
disasters all over the world, with
global warming fast becoming one of
the largest threats to face the human
race. Forecasts of significant sea-level rise
makes the world’s coastal areas
vulnerable to disaster at magnitudes
previously unheard of. And when hit by
natural disaster, such as the 2004
tsunami, human rights are almost always
the very first to be lost, including the
most basic human right – the right to life
itself.
When faced with these natural disasters,
little more can be done after the fact than
to provide medicine, food, shelter,
clothing and reconstruction. Other
disasters, such as the human-induced
Prestige oil spill in Spain in 2002, could
have been avoided with better planning
and engineering. The statistics from
recent disasters demonstrate the large-
scale impact on affected coastal areas:
Hurricane Katrina, southern US
coast, August 29, 2005
● 1,836 people dead
● 200,000 homes destroyed
● 1 million people displaced
● 80% of New Orleans under water
with damages to the amount of
$25.3 billion
8 The edge Spring 2007
survive a
disaster?
By Michel Remi Njiki and Patricia Olney
The costliest and deadliest hurricane
in US history
Asian Tsunami, Indonesia and 13
other countries, December 26,
2004
● 173,906 people dead with many still
missing
● Detrimental economic impact on 10
countries with total aid packages
from other countries totalling
nearly $7 billion
Prestige oil spill, Galician coast of
Spain, November 19, 2002
● 2,000 km of Spain’s coastline and
more than 1,000 beaches in Spain
and France polluted
● Fishing industry in polluted area
greatly damaged with offshore
fishing suspended for six months
● 63,000 tonnes of fuel oil spilled into
the sea
alone estimated at €2.5 billion
● Cost of clean up to Galician coast
● Marine life will suffer effects of the
spill for at least 10 years.
The human rights situation
Once disaster has struck,
implementation of human rights
international standards is not
considered a priority. Instead, priority is
given to the humanitarian crisis with
efforts focused on providing the
minimum necessary for victim survival.
But not enough is done in order for
people to enjoy fully other basic rights.
Under these circumstances, it becomes
necessary to ask the question: can
human rights survive disaster?
During times of peace, there are no ‘hard
law’ legal instruments, (instruments that
bind states), which set out laws
regarding humanitarian relief in the case
of natural disasters. However, there are
instruments that can be enforced in the
case of war, ie the Geneva Convention
IV.
International human rights legal
protection is based on the ‘inherent
dignity and of the equal and inalienable
rights of all members of the human family.’
It is a duty of the international
community and of state governments to
protect all human beings in their
fundamental rights, as a member of that
human family.
International human rights legal
instruments do protect some basic rights
under all circumstances, including great-
scale humanitarian disasters:
● Article 2 of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights
Above: Thousands of homes stand empty and in a dangerous state after Hurricane Katrina.
(UDHR) – No discrimination is
allowed on the basis of race, colour,
sex, language, religion, political
opinion etc – independently of the
international status of the country
to which the person belongs. See
also Article 4 of the International
Covenant on civil and political
rights.
● Article 3 of the UDHR – the right to
life, liberty and security of one’s
own person.
● Article 25 of the UDHR – the right
to a standard of living adequate for
the health and well being of one’s
family, including food, clothing,
housing and medical care,
necessary social services, security in
the event of unemployment,
sickness, disability, widowhood, old
age or other lack of livelihood in
circumstances beyond one’s
control.
● Article 11 of the International
Covenant on Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights (ICESCR) – the
recognition of the fundamental
right of everyone to be free from
hunger.
● Article 28 of the UDHR – the right
to a social and international order
in which rights and freedoms set
forth in the UDHR can be fully
utilised.
● Article 12 of the ICESCR – the right
of everyone to the enjoyment of
the highest attainable standard of
physical and mental health.
The international community’s
responsibility to realise those rights fully
has been emphasised on various
occasions by the UN General Assembly
(Resolutions 43/129; 43/130; 43/131;
and 47/168) – in seeking a greater
involvement of states and a better
coordination of humanitarian relief
actions.
There are some internal constitutional
rights that protect people in the case of
disasters, such as Katrina, the tsunami
and the Prestige oil spill. In Spain, for
example, the Prestige disaster
challenged the constitutional right of
victims to enjoy an adequate
environment for one’s personal
development (Art 45(1)) - and the right
to public health protection (Art 43).
In US constitutional law, Amendment
XIV guarantees equal protection to
every person and at the same time
protection against discrimination.
During the Katrina crisis the US
government was charged by many of
discrimination in its response to the
disaster given that many of the
displaced were poor and/or black,
arguing that a wealthy white area
would have received help in a much
more efficient manner. As the statistics
for this disaster show, poverty has
increased among the displaced, as well
as a general distrust of the
government’s ability to respond and
help, particularly if one is poor and/or
black. The psychological effect of this
lack of trust in public institutions and
authorities will probably last a lifetime
for those affected.
The role of NGOs in
disaster relief and
human rights
NGOs have played a key role in disaster
relief; raising funds, providing food,
clothes, medical care and help in
rebuilding. There is no doubt that
affected states could not bear the cost in
time and money of all the rebuilding
work required. The NGO’s role in
The edge Spring 2007 9
Appeals for help locally in New Orleans; Kids surviving the tsunami, and refugees queuing for food in
India post-tsunami.
disaster relief has become increasingly
recognised at international level. The
International Law Institute considers
that those NGOs who have impartial
humanitarian goals should be granted
full legal capacity to act in the
international ambit. In other words
they should be awarded more authority
to act when a disaster strikes.
Even though there have been many
accusations and criticisms about the
misuse of funds collected for relief
actions, especially during the tsunami
crisis, it is known that the actions of
NGOs are much more efficient than
those of the states, obviously reaching
places where it is not possible for the
states to act.
The non-profit organisation, Human
Rights Watch, when writing to Bill
Clinton in his role as UN special envoy
on tsunami recovery underlined the
10 The edge Spring 2007
fact that recovery effort should be
promoting, or should be judged by
whether it has promoted, greater
respect for the human rights that
existed before the tsunami occurred.
According to that organisation,
indicators used should include
protection from gender, ethnic,
religious and cast-based discrimination,
respect for land rights, ensure freedom
of speech and association and thus
participation and accountability as
central indicators of success of the
“build-back-better” approach. The
organisation also called for a creation of
a mechanism to prevent discrimination
against women in assessing
compensation for lost livelihood, and
creation of new employment
opportunities. It asked Mr Clinton to
insist that all affected governments, the
UN system, and NGOs create the
mechanisms capable of ensuring that
aid reaches all targeted beneficiaries
without discrimination of any kind,
and immediately respond to incidents
of discrimination.
In a number of disaster-affected areas,
many people will not be able to enjoy
the basic rights they’ve lost for a long
time, due to the severe deterioration of
their social and economical conditions.
Sadly, the protections that international
legal instruments guarantee to every
human being become useless, trivial
and inefficient to those most severely
affected – to those people that need
such protections the most.
Michel Remi Njiki is a PhD student in
International Law at the University of
Cadiz, Spain. Patricia Olney has been an
attorney-at-law in California, USA for over
20 years