The Case of the UNCRPD: Fostering a Human Rights-Based Approach to Disaster Risk Reduction and Implementation Monitoring

Abstract

International Human Rights Law (IHRL) does not explicitly affirm a right to protection and relief from disaster; however, it is implied in the positive obligations that the right to life places upon States. By recognizing that climate change-driven disasters have a disproportionate impact on the population, thus exacerbating preexisting vulnerabilities in the society and preventing the full enjoyment of human rights, in particular for the most marginalized, the UN Human Rights system has consolidated its focus on the topic, developing a jurisprudence of Human Rights obligations in the context of climate change. UN Human Rights mechanisms continuously stress the relevance of human rights in both Disaster Management and Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation, promoting the application of a human rights-based approach. UN Treaty Bodies frequently highlight the links between human rights, disaster risk reduction, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as well as their common goal of enhancing community resilience through the reduction of vulnerabilities, despite the fact that these frameworks still work in silos. Considering the parallelism between the evolution of both “disaster theory” and IHRL, the chapter focuses on the need for a human rights approach to Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation, underlining those principles which makes human rights the basis for an effective people-centered disaster risk reduction. To this end, it looks at the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) as a case study, given that the CRPD contains the only binding provision in IHRL citing “natural disasters” as a situation in which a State Party must ensure the protection of persons with disabilities. For this and other reasons, including the strong paradigm shift entailed in the Convention, as well as its explicit social development dimension enshrined in a stand-alone provision on international cooperation (Article 32), the CRPD has a huge potential in fostering the implementation of soft law instruments regulating Disaster Risk Reduction, in compensating the current absence of a flagship treaty on the protection of persons in the event of disasters, and in potentially paving the way for the adoption of such treaty.