IASC, Human Rights and Natural Disasters: Operational Guidelines and Field Manual on Human Rights Protection in Situations of Natural Disasters, 2008

Published Date

Although disasters are quick to strike, their consequences can linger for months and years. In disasters, responders did not always think through how human rights may be affected by their interventions. All too often the human rights of disaster victims are not sufficiently taken into account. These violations could be avoided if both national and international actors took the relevant human rights guarantees into account from the beginning. Thus, there is a need to raise awareness and implement human rights approaches through guidelines. 

The guidelines focus on what humanitarian actors should do to implement a human rights-based approach to humanitarian action in natural disasters. Human rights are the legal underpinnings of all humanitarian work in to natural disasters. 

The guidelines consist of three parts: 

1) Part one explains the notion and implications of human rights protection in situations of natural disaster and the meaning of a human rights-based approach to disaster relief

2) Part two presents the main human rights principles relevant in situations of natural disaster, and how to implement them

3) Part three addresses the special rights and needs of vulnerable groups, for example: women, children, older persons and persons with disabilities