CYIL vol. 8 (2017)

CYIL 8 ȍ2017Ȏ INTERNATIONAL RESPONSIBILITY IN THE CONTEXT OF DISASTER RESPONSE Key words: disasters, responsibility, human rights, humanitarian principles, international aid. On the Author: JUDr. Adam Giertl is a lecturer and PhD. candidate at the Institute of International Law and European Law at the Faculty of Law of the Pavol Jozef Šafarik University in Košice. Introduction Responsibility in International law has developed into a well-established legal regime, predominantly by the practice of the actors within the international environment. 1 Indeed, the development of international public law is not over and as new issues emerge, the need for legal regulation becomes more or less urgent in the respective fields, where the international community felt the need for regulation could be deduced from the work of various international bodies, out of which the most prominent is the International Law Commission. In 2016, the International Law Commission concluded its work on the topic of the protection of persons in the event of disasters. What used to be traditionally dubbed as “the disaster law” had been a sideline of interest of the community of authors of international law. Regardless of this reluctance of academia to deal with the issue, the problems of the disaster affected populations gained more and more attention as time passed and the need of an international legal framework became more apparent. Nowadays, a wide cluster of rules of various quality has developed quickly and dynamically into the legal regime now known among scholars as international disaster response law (hereinafter as “ IDRL ”). 2 Although, the mentioned field of international law is now recognized as a relevant area of legal (and quasi- legal) regulation, it is far from anything like a self-contained regime. 3 However, tragic events like the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, Cyclone Nargis in 2008, droughts and famines in Africa and many more received significant attention from the international community. Moreover, global climate change already raises new challenges to the international community and consequently, to international law as well. The relation of causality of droughts (the severity of which was induced by global warming) and the events of the Arab Spring and subsequent armed conflicts like the ongoing one in Syria, 4 the prospects of the disappearance of territories 1 Responsibility of states and international governmental organizations is governed by the rules of international customary law that are reflected in the Draft Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Act (see: United Nations General Assembly Resolution A/RES/56/83 adopted on 12 December 2001) and in the Draft Articles on Responsibility of International Organizations for Internationally Wrongful Act (see: United Nations General Assembly Resolution A/RES/66/100 adopted on 9 December 2011). 2 The term is used predominantly by academia, however it found its place in the work of the International Law Commission and became a standard term denoting the set of norms governing the disaster response. See: de GUTTRY, Andrea: Surveying the Law. In: de GUTTRY Andrea, GESTRI Marco, VENTURINI Gabriela (eds.): International Disaster Response Law , Hague: T.M.C. Asser press, 2012, ISBN: 978-90-6704-881-1, p. 6. See as well: REINECKE Isabelle: International Disaster Response Law and the Coordination of International Organization, The ANU Undergraduate Research Journal , Volume Two 2010, p. 145. Online: http://press-files. anu.edu.au/downloads/press/n1676/pdf/ch09.pdf. 3 VENTURINI Gabriela: International Disaster Response Law in Relation to Other Branches of International Law. In: de GUTTRY Andrea, GESTRI Marco, VENTURINI Gabriela (eds.): International Disaster Response Law , op. cit. n. 3 , p. 61. 4 WELCH Craig: Cli mate Change Helped Spark Syrian War, Study Says. In: National Geographic, March 2, 2015. Online: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/03/150302-syria-war-climate-change-drought/. The

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