CYIL vol. 14 (2023)

CYIL 14 (2023) THREE QUARTERS OF A CENTURY OF THE UN INTERNATIONAL LAW COMMISSION… balance and unanimously submitted to the States in the GA 6 th Committee for the first reading the draft of the articles of possible future convention on the protection of persons in the event of disasters. This draft of a convention, after the Commission considered the comments of States to the draft and accordingly approved it in the second reading, it is now ready for the continuation of the codification process. 34 According to some information, an effort is underway at the UN to continue the codification process of this topic which, if it comes to it, will also be to my satisfaction. Between 1983 to 1986, I lived in Ethiopia and worked at the university in Addis Ababa. This was the time of a catastrophe in the “socialist” Ethiopia hit by the great famine (1984–1986) which supposedly claimed over a million human lives in two years. I was involved in the dramatic events at that time. For almost a year, the Ethiopian state authorities did not recognize the existence of famine, which particularly severely affected areas under the control of anti-government guerrillas. There can be no famine in socialist Ethiopia and therefore there is no famine, this was the essence of the position of the then “socialist” government of Ethiopia. However, people were dying, children, old people, everyone. The government rejected aid from NGOs and Western countries, claiming it might open the door to foreign interference and threats to Ethiopia’s sovereignty. People were dying, even in front of my eyes when I visited the affected areas. Later, as a member of the Commission, I was involved in the topic of protection by international law of persons in case of disasters. We found in the Commission a way to a consensus, to a balance, which resulted in draft articles, which are now waiting to be codified in the form of a convention. I was involved in achieving a successful conclusion of the work of the Commission of this topic and I feel a sense of satisfaction that I had done my duty to those children whose starved corpses I looked at and was horrified by the inactions of the Ethiopian rulers at that time and also by the indifference of the people in Ethiopia and abroad. I am satisfied that in the Commission, under the leadership of the Special Rapporteur Valencia Ospina, we highlighted human dignity as a starting point for the protection of all human rights also in the event of disasters; that we have asserted the primary responsibility of the affected State in dealing with the disaster, as well as its right, but also its duty to request or ask for help, if it were not capable of protecting the victims of the disaster and providing them with the necessary assistance; that there is an obligation under international law to cooperate in dealing with a disaster; and that the affected State must not arbitrarily refuse aid if it is not able by itself to deal effectively with the disaster and its consequences. Another topic in the work of the Commission, with which I was also deeply involved, are the conclusions (conclusions) on the “identification and legal consequences of peremptory norms of general international law - jus cogens ”. At the end of the 19th century and in the first half of the 20th century, jus cogens in international law (as well as ideas and discussions about it) was rarely present in the practice of States and in the doctrine of international law. Later, especially in the European “socialist” East, after 1945 it was considered that international law is an expression of the will of States only, nothing more and nothing less. The will of States is expressed by concluding international treaties, by actual behaviour of States that creates international customary law, and via so-called general principles of law, which are eventually part of the domestic law of States and thus also an expression of their will. This view which 34 Text of the Draft Articles on the Protection of Persons in the Event of Disasters, see in: Yearbook of the International Law Commission 2016, A/CN.4/ SER.A/2016/ Add. 1(Part 2).

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