Disaster Risk Reduction Elements in the PPED Draft Articles - Side Event on the Margins of the PPED PrepCom

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Okay, Excellency, distinguished delegates, colleagues and friends, very warm welcome from UN DRR, and thank you for joining this side event on the disaster risk reduction dimensions of the draft articles on the Protection of persons in the event of disasters.
My name is Ismail Zahir.
I am the Acting Chief of the UN DRR New York Office, and it's my pleasure to moderate this event.
As preparations advance towards the Planipotentiary conference, this discussion provides an opportunity to reflect on a key evolution in international approaches to disaster governance.
The growing recognition that protecting persons from disasters requires not only effective response, but also prevention, preparedness, risk reduction, and resilience building.
This shift is reflected both in soft law instruments on disaster risk reduction, most notably the Sendai Framework, as well as the draft articles themselves.
While the draft articles are often associated with disaster response and assistance, they also contain important provisions on reducing disaster risk, particularly in Article 2 on the purpose of the draft articles and Article 9 on the reduction of disaster risk.
These provisions raise a number of important legal, policy, and practical questions that member states are currently considering as part of the preparatory process.
Today's event has been designed as a technical exchange to support these discussions.
We will explore these issues, including the relationship between the draft articles and existing disaster risk reduction frameworks, the implications of different approaches to defining disasters, the nature of the obligation contained in Article 9, and the role of international cooperation and assistance in supporting disaster risk reduction efforts.
These themes also echo the Sendai Framework for disaster risk reduction, our global blueprint for building resilience, and they were strongly affirmed during the midterm review which happened in 2023.
Together, these instruments reinforce a simple but critical truth.
Preventing and reducing disaster risk is a shared responsibility and one that must be embedded across all sectors, institutions, and governance arrangements.
We are delighted to be joined by a distinguished panel of experts in disaster law and policy, as well as a practitioner bringing a regional perspective on the implementation of disaster risk reduction frameworks.
It is now my pleasure to invite Her Excellency, miss Santita Heck, the Deputy Permanent representative of Bangladesh to the United Nations to deliver opening remarks on behalf of the core group, our co host for today's event.
Excellency, you have the floor.
Moderator and good afternoon to everybody.
I'm very happy to be here.
On behalf of Bangladesh and the core group, I would like to thank D, even DRR for facilitating this event.
I think this event is a great opportunity for us to have a deeper examination of the disaster risk reduction dimensions of the draft articles for PPED.
Over the past decades, we have witnessed a significant shift in how the international community understands disasters.
Disasters are no longer viewed solely as emergencies that requires response after they have occurred.
Increasingly, we recognize that disaster impacts can be reduced through risk informed policies, strengthened preparedness, resilient infrastructure, early warning systems, and investment in prevention.
For Bangladesh, this discussion is particularly relevant.
Bangladesh is among the countries which are most exposed to disasters and climate related risks.
Cyclones, floods, storm surges, river erosion, and other hazards have shaped our development trajectory for decades.
A large proportion of our population lives in areas exposed to multiple hazards, making disaster risk reduction not simply a policy choice, but a national necessity.
At the same time, our experience demonstrates that disaster impacts are not inevitable.
Through sustained investment in disaster risk reduction, preparedness and resilience, our country has achieved remarkable progress in reducing disaster mortality and strengthening community resilience.
Today, Bangladesh continues to strengthen inclusive and end to end early warning systems, integrating risk knowledge forecasting, communication, preparedness, and anticipatory action.
Our experience has shown that when communities receive timely warnings and have the capacity to act upon them, lives and livelihoods can be protected on a remarkable scale, truly protecting persons in the event of disasters.
Yet, our experience also reminds us that disaster risk reduction is a continuous process.
New and evolving risks, including the impacts of climate change, increasing urbanization, and interconnected vulnerabilities across sectors require sustained effort innovation and cooperation.
No country, regardless of its capacities, can address these challenges alone.
It is therefore particularly timely that member states are reflecting on how disaster risk reduction should be addressed within the framework of the proposed Convention.
That is why today's discussion is so valuable.
We are fortunate to be joined by leading experts and practitioners who bring perspectives from international law, disaster governance, and regional practice.
We look forward to benefiting from their insights and to engaging in a constructive dialogue with all participants.
I thank you and DRR once again for facilitating this discussion with the core group and I wish everyone a productive and engaging discussion.
I thank you.
Thank you very much, Excellency, for emphasizing this importance of prevention and also sharing these positive experiences from Bangladesh as well, which we think is very important to draw on these experiences as we have these discussions on these articles.
Next, to help frame our discussion, I would now like to invite my colleague, miss Martina Mueller, the program management officer with UN DRR, to provide a brief overview of the disaster risk reduction provisions in the draft articles and the key issues emerging from the written amendments that have been submitted by countries during the preparatory process.
Martina, you have the floor.
Thank you so much, Yasmin.
The idea with this chart presentation is just to really give an overview of what is contained in these amendment proposals in terms of the disastrous production aspects.
As an overview, 45 submissions with amendment proposals have been, of course, submitted by member states.
These represent 41 These represent 41 unique submitters because a few countries submitted two proposals, and then you can see all of them here on the slide and we've also seen a few group submissions which are also listed.
Now, of course, I want to point out that some of these submissions were made in a preliminary format.
These are not necessarily the final opinions of member states, but this is what we had to analyze and take a look.
So from these most submissions, 30 out of the 41 unique ones, they also reflect on elements related to disaster risk reduction.
I want to point out that in this entire presentation, our analysis is of all submissions, not only the ones that made it into the compilation document.
Submissions that didn't have exact textual proposals but made comments on specific aspects are included in the analysis as well.
So if we take a look at the breakdown of these 30 submissions that I mentioned, 29 really on one side, either acknowledge that the treaty should address prevention, preparedness, response and recovery or otherwise make concrete proposals relating to disaster risk reduction as an integral component of the draft.
One submission does propose the removal of disaster risk reduction from the convention, and 11 submissions contain no comments on the DRR elements.
And diving into the two articles that as the draft was proposed by the International Law Commission contains specific reference to disaster risk reduction.
So this is Article 2 on purpose and Article 9 on the reduction of the risk of disasters.
Article 2 on purpose, on the left side, we have the draft as proposed by the IOC.
Here we had 16 submissions that made concrete proposals on Article 2.
Several of them, nine, made proposals that relate to the full disaster cycle.
They include referring to disaster management, international cooperation, also assistance in recovery, to expand this a little bit further.
One submission excludes DRR from the article, and then six submissions propose other changes that are not necessarily related to disaster risk reduction.
Since we're talking about this article 0N purpose, often the article 0N scope also is considered.
Here again is the language by the IOC.
We had ten submissions that proposed expanding the scope to explicitly encompass the full disaster cycle, so really including disaster risk reduction.
To proposed extending the scope to include the imminent disaster risk, that type of situation.
Three submissions proposed changes that are not related to DRR and then one submission actually proposes the deletion of Article 1, saying that Article 2 would already cover this.
But the majority of submissions so 25 submissions contained no proposals on Article 1.
Moving to Article 9, here you can see the first paragraph and what is underlined as the first part of the first paragraph.
Diving into this aspect, 19 submissions made proposals on Article 9 0.1, and then several submissions proposed clarifying the limitations to the obligation in this first part.
The formulations are within its capacities, endeavor to the extent possible in accordance with its resources and capabilities.
We see an interest here in clarifying.
The limitations.
Then one submission proposes changing shall to should in this first part.
Then there are also several other proposals that concern the second part of this paragraph, where it says, including through legislation and regulations, et cetera.
A few proposals are, for example, within its existing adding within its existing legal system, adding a few other elements, for example, around policies, training, specifically referencing resilience.
With a view to strengthening resilience, there are several different types of proposals made around the second piece.
Then moving to the second paragraph of this article, which really has the types of measures, the list.
We had 19 submissions that made proposals on this part.
Seven of them propose clarifying that this list is illustrative.
They used proposals such as including inter alea, among others, may include as appropriate.
It indicates that there's some interest in clarifying because this is noted in the commentaries that accompany the draft articles, but maybe it's not fully clear in the articles themselves.
And then several submissions support further elaborating on different elements of disaster risk reduction, for example, on resilient investment, on the governance piece and whole society, and then diving into it a little bit further.
Some submissions proposed, referring to systemic and cascading risk, referring to the goal of resilience specifically.
We had a submission that proposed reporting some reporting mechanism on this obligation specifically.
Then there were three submissions that proposed adding a third paragraph to this Article 9, And on topics such as national platforms for DRR or another submission around the trust fund and corporation for DRR, and then another clarifying the limitations regarding states capacities to implement this article.
Then again, one submission proposes deleting the article entirely.
Diving into the international cooperation piece, we noticed that several submissions proposed expanding this element directly linked to disastrous production.
16 submissions, talk about this.
Most of them propose expanding it within Article 7 and Article 8, on duty to cooperate, farms to cooperate.
But some propose entirely new articles on the topic, others propose adding it to the preamble.
As I just mentioned, adding a third paragraph to Article 9.
These are all options that were brought forward by member states.
Then a few proposed also including disastrous production, not only in these articles, but also in the articles around external assistance.
The content really varies.
It copies several topics, technical assistance, capacity building, technological transfer, targeted financial assistance, but this is a little bit of an overview of what we've seen.
I have two further topics that are maybe not fully or only DRR, but I wanted to bring them up.
One is the definition of disasters.
This is actually from our analysis, the part that received most proposals, most amendment proposals from member states, 31 of the 41 unique submissions touch on this definition.
And we saw that 12 of them called for an alignment with internationally agreed terminology.
Ten specifically suggests the definition adopted by the open ended intergovernmental working group on disaster risk reduction.
You can see the terminology on the slide.
It was endorsed by the General Assembly through Resolution 71 slash 276.
This is also the terminology or the definition that we internally at UNDRR adopt because it was intergovernmentally agreed in 2017.
This happened shortly after these draft articles were proposed by the International Law Commission.
Um, 11 submissions proposed clarifying the exclusion of armed conflict.
So that's noteworthy.
There were several.
And then some proposals, seek to further elaborate on specific pieces, either cutting elements, adding elements, clarifying certain elements around it.
Then finally, the reference to natural disasters.
This is in the preamble.
We can see it on the left side here, which talks about natural and human made disasters.
We noticed several submissions that propose deleting this reference.
It is, in fact, UNDR also does not adopt this concept of natural disasters anymore.
If you look at the OAWG terminology, and it only refers to disasters such as the Sendai Framework as well.
Eight submissions proposed deleting.
One submission explicitly suggests explaining why disasters are not natural or that disasters are not natural is very interesting.
But then the majority of submissions did not address this topic at all.
That is it from my side.
Thank you so much.
Thank you very much, Martina, for that overview.
Now with those introductions and the context setting, we will move on to our panel discussion.
It's my pleasure to introduce our first speaker, Professor Kirsten Book Miller, who is a professor in the Department of Government Law and International Relations at Millersville University, and adjunct facility faculty in Disaster Law at Vermont Law and Graduate School.
Professor Book Miller has contributed to scholarship and policy discussions on disaster law for many years.
She is a co founder and the current co chair of the American Society of International Law's Disaster Law Interest Group and has written extensively on the development of the PPD draft articles and related legal frameworks.
Today, she will discuss how the draft articles relate to broader international disaster risk reduction frameworks, including the opportunities and challenges of ensuring coherence between these instruments.
Professor Brooke Miller, you have the floor.
Thank you very much and let me first express my heartfelt appreciation to the core group and to UNDRR for inviting me to participate on these discussions around a very historic process.
I'm going to be focusing my comments specifically on Article 9, the more substantive provision related to disaster risk reduction.
Where my colleague, miss Mueller gave you a very fine, precise granular reading about the amendments submitted by member states, I'm going to widen the lens considerably and to look at why having a DRR provision is so instrumental in an agreement which at first glance seems to be specifically about response.
Now, the statements that Martina just went over, we can see generally that there is a positive disposition to having this provision, but I don't take for granted that we have, of course, many governments that did not submit positions in this regard and that there are also some elements of concern, shall we say.
Very briefly, if we look at the spectrum of positions, on the one hand, that there is this.
These are extremes, of course, with many, many nuances in between, that there's no need for a DRR provision within PEPid, that this would be duplicative at best given other existing frameworks and exacerbates incoherence, which we're always concerned about in public international law, no matter the regime.
And all the way, on the other hand, we have a historic opportunity to specifically include a legal obligation around DRR, and that it needs to be, in fact, as inclusive as possible along these lines.
Next slide, please.
So if my time should run out, there are three major themes that I would like to leave with you.
One is, in fact, this more elemental premise that there is a critical need for including DRR as a legal obligation against the wider backdrop of the agreements overarching objectives in improving cross border response, that the inclusion of this related obligation in fact enhances international legal coherence and complementarity rather than undermines it, a concern that has been expressed heretore and that on a more personal heartfelt note, the DRR is not a legal abstraction, but it's a lifesaving measure with a direct impact on the protection of persons, which of course is a phrasing built in the very name of the instrument itself.
So why is DRR an integral component of an effective agreement? One is that we have over the past few years really upended the conventional wisdom, both policy and academically, that disaster response is siloed in a discrete disaster management activity.
For any of you that might have seen, in fact, the disaster management visual, It's a cycle, constantly a circle, constantly reinforcing each other.
They are not in fact separated from each other.
But surprisingly, after many years of engaging with this topic, I am still amazed in my conversations that we continue to be reactive rather than proactive and to think of disaster response is in fact a standalone process.
This is really outdated thinking, and if Pepin should move forward without a strong emphasis on risk reduction, quite frankly, it's outdated before it even hits the ground running.
Um, taking measures to reduce the risk associated with disasters also potentially reduces the need for an external response to begin with, which seems a very simple logic and thinking.
But when we really focus on the name and the phrasing, reducing the risk of disasters, if we have done so in the most extreme, most successful sense, what country may not need an external response at all.
So it's a provision that almost is a kill switch in the agreement, isn't it, on response, that if the job is done right by local, through national, and the international communities, that a response isn't necessarily needed because, of course, the instrument skews towards if it can be handled nationally, then the international community will not be involved.
Or it can reduce its complexity if, in fact, risk has been reduced.
And in taking risk reduction measures, now, of course, Article 9 is somewhat pointed in some of the examples that it includes, but those measures are also part of a successful response.
What I mean by this is infrastructure integrity, your roads, your airports, your hospitals, your schools, that if these are in fact addressed ahead of time, advanced training, when you need a response, then that infrastructure has been addressed not only for risk reduction, but for the assistance stage.
Also nine expands the temporal scope of protection beyond response to reducing the risk that produce the harm in the first place.
Again, if we think about the ethic behind protection of persons, then we have broadened it in an appropriate way.
Next slide, please.
Thank you.
One of the concerns we have across the regimes of public international law is this idea of increasing fragmentation.
Uh, that the more we add, do we spin further into discrete silos disconnected from each other and a worry about coherence.
Again, a more dogmatic position would be if we have this provision in PEPid that it creates overlapping obligation with other aspects of disaster law, or we might run into some tension points with other areas of law, whether it's the Sendai framework, which I'll come back to in just a moment.
There's very robust activity happening on the regional level, so there's a concern potentially of conflicts with those frameworks.
We have existing sectoral specific agreements in disaster law, telecommunications, nuclear accident responses and so forth.
Then of course, there are the close cousin regimes, including environmental law.
The opposite view, and that is my own personal view is that, no, Article 9 does not contribute to this further fragmentation.
On the one hand, we have a really elemental challenge, as all of you in the room know, that the Sendai framework for disaster risk reduction 2015 to 2030 is a non binding soft law instrument and I love soft law to be very clear.
But it's useful in establishing political, diplomatic, normative expectations, but it of course is not a hard binding instrument, and so this provision will create the first global legal commitment related to disaster risk reduction, and so it shifts DRR from being a best ideal practice to a legal expectation.
And I think bringing these both together, that both instruments powerfully complement each other.
Sundai provides a roadmap for the international community, if you will, on the how to of DRR, while Pepid will underscore the DRR is a legal responsibility.
This is especially important because Sendai itself, the second part of the name is 2015 to 2030.
We are in September 2026.
We are four years away from the sunsetting of this instrument.
No matter what may happen with the post Sendai, the new framework, and I want to commend Sendai for achieving extraordinary things, then we have Article 9 in there to keep our eye on the ball so to speak, that this remains a significantly important element with regard to international disaster law.
Also, Sendai has a priority for those of you who may be familiar with it, priority four.
Priority four is about preparedness for response.
In other words, an element of Sendai is response focused, local, national, regional, and global.
So four explicitly already connects risk reduction to effective response.
What I believe is really important as the community moves forward in the coming months is that PPID should do a callback, so to speak, also to Sendai and its DRR architecture, reinforcing local coherence and complementarity.
In other words, they're in conversation and reinforcing with each other.
To do otherwise would isolate response from its enabling conditions.
What a community does before a disaster significantly shapes its capacity to respond when a disaster strikes.
So Article 9 is critical connective tissue, critical connective tissue in the ongoing development of international disaster law.
On a final note, this has been, unfortunately, continues to be every year, a difficult year.
But I want to really bring home it's very easy in this August body that I respect so much in public international law to forget the very human element of what we are talking about here.
What I love about DRR as I tell my students, is that we have tremendous success stories in this area.
If I might acknowledge, in fact, my esteemed colleague to the right, Bangladesh is legendary for many of the efforts that they have taken in this regard with real data to back up in terms of warning systems, the saving of lives.
These are two headlines from US national media about two different earthquakes that happened during the month of August.
One is, of course, related to Japan, the Community of Kumamoto.
The article talks not only about earthquake resistant buildings, but as you can see even in the subheadline, trained locals in search and rescue and the importance of community participation.
Again, they could see that this had reduced the loss of life.
A second example from another region of the world is in a notably named Armenia, Colombia.
That is correct, a beautiful area from what I understand that Colombia, of course, also experienced a very significant earthquake recently.
Armenia is a city in excuse me western central that had an earthquake in 1999, and they took a number of steps, technical and engineering wise, but also community preparedness.
The article begins with a husband and wife that remembered the 99 earthquake.
When they felt those familiar shakes, they knew exactly what they needed to do.
This town had no deaths due to this earthquake.
It is very much understood by the academic and practitioner sector that those measures made a difference.
Might I note then that this particular city would not have needed an international response.
So I hope in your coming conversations and your dialogue and discussions to know that DRR is an instrumental part and instead of asking the question, why would the agreement have a DRR provision, I would leave it with, why would it not? Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, Professor Book Miller, and I think you've highlighted very clearly how this instrument can potentially enhance legal coherence and complementarity both at the local but also global level.
Then you've also illustrated how this issue of prevention and risk reduction connects with the other cycles of other parts of the disaster cycle and how practically this has helped countries build resilience and the impacts that we have seen on the ground, including countries like Colombia and Japan.
Thank you very much for those very useful insights.
Our next speaker is Professor Marie Aronson Storier, lecturer in law at University College of Cork.
Professor Aronson Storier's research focuses on international law and disaster risk, particularly the legal dimensions of risk creation, prevention, and governance in an increasingly complex and interconnected risk landscape.
She will address draft Article 9 and its provision on disaster risk reduction with a particular focus on the nature of the obligation it contains, including questions of due diligence, implementation, and varying national capacities.
Professor, you have the floor.
Thank you, sir.
Good afternoon, Excellencies, distinguished delegates, colleagues and friends.
It is wonderful to be here today and thank you for being here and taking the time to be here and thank you so much to the UNDRR for kindly inviting me to be part of this important discussion today.
As mentioned, I will primarily be talking about this risk reduction, but also participation today.
But I also wanted to just first just come back to a couple of comments on the purpose and scope of the proposed instruments.
Now, as many of you know, this has been discussed at length for a number of years now.
I think it's important to note that although the scope in Article 1 refers to the protection of persons in the event of disasters, the commentary by the LLC clarifies that it also includes disaster prevention and mitigation activities as set out in draft Article 2.
It would be, I believe, and I've said this before and I will say it again today to all of you that it would be beneficial to update the wording to clarify that the scope and purpose includes disastrous reduction and recovery in line with the commentaries.
Indeed, there is a significant challenge here that you're all facing with these negotiations that while the draft articles are benefiting from the ILCs extensive commentaries, and with the additional details and clarifications, this is not going to be the case for the instruments that is being developed.
Careful consideration must be given as to what aspects of the commentaries should be incorporated into the main text.
As mentioned, I have been working extensively on disaster risk reduction and there is no secret that I believe that it is uniquely placed to address the intersectional challenges facing the world today.
It is very well established now that disaster response, while immensely important and deserving of plenty of attention, is only part of the overall solution and it is absolutely essential also to work to prevent disasters from happening in the first place.
As my esteemed colleague, Professor Book Miller has just pointed out, DRR is also an essential part of effective response, as well as response is a part of disaster risk reduction and recovery.
They are all interconnected, and they cannot practically be separated from each other.
The inclusion of DRR in this instrument, it's beneficial not only to affected persons, but to all states, whether they're engaging in this process primarily as a state living with high risk of disasters or as a donor country, or, as is the case for many countries here, a combination of the two.
Back in 2016, which is somehow already ten years ago, the ILC used two separate avenues to establish the obligation to reduce disaster risk.
First of all, it refers to the widespread practice of states with the commentary providing a long list of examples, including verbal practice and the adoption of multilateral instruments, along with an extensive list of adopted national instruments as well.
It is important to note that this practice is much more widespread now with, for example, more than 130 states now reporting the existence of national DRR strategies, up from only 55 when the SNA framework was adopted in 2015.
In 2023, as many of you here will know, states adopted the political declaration of the high level meeting of the midterm review of the SNA framework without a vote and agreed to ensure that the soft risk governance is supported by legal and regulatory frameworks, policies and plans at all levels.
Secondly, the obligation to reduce disaster risk was drawn from well established binding obligations in other areas of international law, in particular, at the time drawn from international human rights law and international environmental law.
Now, there has been significant work undertaken and I'm very grateful for my colleagues here on the panel for the work that has been done on this over the last decade to continue to map and to ground the obligations that are and the aims, actually, this roadmap that Kirsten was just talking about, that is the Sendai Framework, to ground this roadmap into binding obligations that are already existing in various parts of international law.
In terms of the wording of what is currently draft Article 9, it is clear that this is an obligation of each and every state, but importantly, it is a duty of conduct, not result to reduce the risk of disasters.
The use of the word appropriate serves to account for the highly different actions which will need to be taken depending on the context for any specific state, including its risk profile, but also its capacity.
In my view, it makes perfect sense to keep the obligation as one of conduct not result, but also to ensure states and to allow states some flexibility in what the measures might look like.
In terms of the second paragraph, it is clear that the measures that are currently listed are illustrative as can be seen in the word include, as well as in the commentary.
Now, anyone who's looked at the submissions will have seen different suggestions for expanding this list.
I certainly, I believe that there is certainly scope to include more detail here, which can be guided by existing submissions as well as the send out framework for DRR and the UN DRR wider work.
However, I want to stress that the most important part here is that we keep the list as illustrative and open so as to not unnecessarily limit any future actions.
It is very important that this openness remains as we continue to gain greater understanding of disaster risk and the appropriate measures to reduce it.
Now, I will now turn our attention to an aspect of participation and inclusion in what I would call PPD, but I also heard PepT and I like PepT.
PepT sounds nicer, happier in the procedures.
But I want to turn this attention to something that's very, very close to my heart.
Now, as lawyers, I believe there are many lawyers in the room.
We are very good at arguing over words.
Many of us even enjoy it most of the time.
But it's also important to make sure in all our legal analysis, in all our arguments that the affected persons, peoples, and communities are not forgotten and that we don't park our compassion and our empathy at the door when we are entering these negotiation rooms.
Law, international law, but also national law is an incredibly important instrument, but it can be blunt.
The same is true when we're creating lists of participants in processes and procedures.
Who is in, who is out.
There are clear lines drawn in black and in white.
We all know that the reality is much more complex and nuanced than this.
Not all of us here have the power and possibility to move the lines that are drawn.
But it is, I believe, for each and every one of us to think about how color can be brought to these pictures through various types of processes and submissions, international, national, local, many of which already exist within DRR work.
And for us to think carefully about how we can make space for communities, non state actors, and diverse knowledge holders to make their voices and stories heard through various means of communication.
Not only this week, not only in next year's conference, but also in the design of any implementation processes that we are building.
I will leave it here, and I look forward to your discussion.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Professor, for sharing those insights, not only on the nature of the obligation, making the distinction between duty of conduct versus result, but also factoring in issues like the risk profiles and capacities of countries to comply, which is very important and I think something that's been flagged by countries as well.
Also, I think the point that you made about what's currently in there being illustrative rather than definitive is quite an important point as well, given the nature of risks, how they evolve, the cascading nature of them, and how we need to adjust our approaches based on that.
I think you ended on a very important note in terms of making sure that the right voices are heard and that given the fact that disasters in fact impact people, so it should be a people driven process.
Thank you very much for those insights.
Our next speaker is Professor Giulio Bartolini, Professor of International Law at Roma Tre University.
Professor Bartolini is a leading expert in international disaster law.
He was a legal assistant to the International Law Commission Special Reperire on PPD and is the editor in chief of the Yearbook of International Disaster Law.
Today, he will explore the cooperation and assistance provisions of the draft articles and discuss how these provisions may support disaster risk reduction efforts while respecting state sovereignty and the primary responsibility of affected states.
Professor Bartolini, you have the floor.
Thanks a lot.
Of course, I would like to express my gratitude to you and disaster Dction for the kind invitation to contribute to this dialogue.
Today, I would like to make some bit more technical analysis of the comparison between the Sendai framework and the current text of the draft articles in order to avoid or to suggest delegation to pay attention to the need to align the text and to guarantee more coherence between the different texts, which might facilitate a better understanding of disaster risk reduction and its impact in the future activities.
In this regard, I would like to start from the very basic definition of disaster in which on the left side you have the current text of the draft articles, and on the right side, you have another UN text because basically the adopting the UN disaster discussion terminology adopted by states through the working group is also a UN document which of course could be taken into account in the different discussion going to take place from here to the diplomatic negotiation.
If you compare the two texts, of course, you might easily understand how the approach adopted by the commission at the time was to look at some threshold for the definition of disaster, which goes a bit, let me say, against what has been the approach for disaster resuction which basically the attention is also paid to small scale disaster to event which does not have such a high threshold for the application.
Of course, if Article 3 is kept in the current version, Then measure that states are requested to adopt under Article 9 will be, let me say, adopted in line the definition of disaster itself.
Basically, the point from a legal perspective might be that state have this obligation to reduce the risk of disaster in light of disaster as defined as a term of art in the same definition of the treaty, which of course will increase, let me say the standard of the existence of disaster.
Basically means that Under Article 9, there will be no major or substantial obligation to reduce small scale disaster or to intervene in risk and similar elements.
That's the point I would suggest to take into account, particularly with reference to societies versus community with the idea that maybe if you had a community, it might lower the threshold for the definition of disaster.
Then again, the suggestion is to pay attention on other elements which could better qualify the definition of disaster also for disaster destruction purposes.
One element is, for instance, that the topology of disaster to pay attention that, for instance, we include anthropogenic hazard as well as a technological hazard and other elements.
All these issues are analyzed both in the commentary, the rough articles as well as in the annotation, which is commentary to the report adopted by the UN General Assembly, which of course, in case you are going to adopt a treaty must go to the same in the text themselves at the time in which I had the pleasure to work with the Special Rapporteur at the International Commission, there was not so much difference between having a provision in the text or having the point made in the commentary because for the International Commission it's almost the same.
While for a treaty, of course, you need to upgrade some of the eminent current in the commentary to the current text in order to have a clear understanding of these terms also for the future generation point which was raised quite a lot of time in these days.
Next, please.
Another point for instance is of the need of additional coherence between the text might be under cooperation.
We know under Article 7 there is this duty to cooperate in this area for the application of the present treaty, I would say now.
Then Article 8 are forms of cooperation in the response of disaster.
The missing point is quite clear.
You don't have a lot of gnular analysis, a lot of attention toward, let me say, cooperation also for disaster risk reduction measure because they are not mentioned there.
Of course, they could be filled in the treaty because Article 7 acts as a broad provision which of course could also be applied for disaster risk reduction elements, but then you don't have any reference to What might be the potential measure of international cooperation for disaster risk reduction, which are not present under Article 8.
That's the reason why a series of delegation have suggested to include some wording in order to a forms of cooperation also for disaster risk reduction.
Would it be strange to have something on international cooperation or cooperate also for disaster risk reduction? No, it will not be unusual as states have already agreed that international cooperation is something worthy of attention, particularly for the Sendai Framework.
Framework has seven targets or seven main goals and one of them state decide that it should be to substantially enhance international cooperation to their countries through a series of measure which could be relevant for the implementation of the present framework.
Basically, states have already, let me say, agreed international cooperation is a component of disaster risk reduction and it suggests to act both through North South cooperation, but also to South South cooperation, which is also extremely relevant through a different series of actors, which will be states, by the UN, other international organizations, and of course, the broader community of stakeholders in disaster risk action, which might also be involved.
International cooperation is something maybe to pay a bit of attention about it.
I would invite you to pay attention.
It's up to the states how to decide to act, but it will not be something unusual.
In discussing disaster risk reduction measure.
The other point might be which measure would be required to act as potential elements of relevance for disaster risk reduction and international cooperation.
Again, we know how under Article 9, there are a series of measures suggested.
To be honest, the current list under Article 9 in terms of measure element for Dction is quite short, to be honest.
The reason is quite easy once a bit of memory when I was there at the time of the adoption, of course, we had a bit of rush because with the special report, we just got, let me say, the printed copy of the framework a few months in advance to send the final version of the articles adopted.
There was, to be honest, a bit of rush and let me say a consolidated analysis of which measure would be more relevant to be included, so we pick and choose some of the point.
Now I think states have the chance to expand more.
What are the relevant disaster reion measure.
We already seen a lot of delegation going for more granular content of measure with regard to disaster risk reduction, which, of course, might also have an impact on international cooperation on disaster risk reduction because you know, let me say if you define with more gradual content, which measure would be helpful for disaster reduction, Let me say, the majority of them would also be relevant for potential international cooperation.
Again, within the same Sendai framework, we have a full section which is devoted to international cooperation and global partnership, means of implementation.
Already some guidance of what concrete measure of international cooperation in this area would be helpful are already been provided by by the same states once adopting the terminology and once adopted the report at the UN General Aimate of course, it's a matter of sharing of information technology as financial support, technical or technological transfer.
You might have quite opportunities to pick up some of the option.
Again, I would suggest you to pay attention to the midterm review of the implementation of the S framework.
This exercise took place a couple of years ago within the UN, which again, it was emphasized that there have been not so much reporting by states about measure of international support for distri action, but still this section emphasize multiple, thousands of examples of instances where technology transfer, capacity development, or also some target financial support are being provide.
To wrap up My suggestion is now simply to flag the potential need of better alignment between the two texts in order to avoid some incoherence or to guarantee a proper, let me say, management of the future treaty with the hope that let me say, the text which will come out in Bangkok next year will not be the end of the discussion.
Of course, being this area, let me say, al area of development, let me say my suggestion would be also to keep into account how such a measure particular also if you would like to include something about international cooperation will definitely benefit for having as accompanying instrument elements such as for the conference of the parties in which there could be a regular meeting, where experience could be shared, where best practice could be discussed among states, which is an element, of course, which might reinforce also the interest by some states on putting such element in the current text, which of course we need that we say a instrument in order to avoid that what is the next year will be stocked for decades with the risk to lose a bit of momentum with the need to have different languages in the future.
My suggest is also to take into account how potential change in text should be accompanied by some ancillary measure for permitted text to move forward for the future decades and for future activities.
That's all.
Thank you very much, Professor Bartolini.
I think that was a very useful presentation, looking at also how the ILC had looked at some of these issues initially as well and considered these including in the annotations that they produced.
I think an important point that you raised was also about how some of these obligations already exist and drawing from those, how we can best enhance this without going against fragmenting things further.
With that, we will now turn to our final speaker who is joining us remotely from Jakarta.
Mr.
Lawrence Demelk is an Assistant Director for Disaster Monitoring and Analysis at the Asean Coordinating Center for Humanitarian Assistance on Disaster Management, commonly known as the AHA Center.
Thank you, Mr.
Demelk, for joining us at such a late hour for you.
One of the questions emerging from the discussions on the draft articles concerns how cooperation and disaster risk reduction obligations are reflected in practice.
The Asean Agreement on Disaster Management and emergency responses or AADMER provides an important regional example of a legally binding framework that incorporates both disaster risk reduction and disaster management elements.
Mr.
Demelk will share perspectives from the Asean experience and discuss how regional cooperation mechanisms have contributed to strengthening disaster risk reduction across the region.
Mr.
Amalg, you have the floor.
Thank you and good morning.
Can you confirm if you could hear me? Yes, we can hear you.
And can you see the presentation already? Yes, we can.
Right.
Good morning, everyone, and it's a pleasure to join you in this very important event to share the Asean experience on how legal documents are translated into actions on the ground from a practitioner perspective.
So going on the presentation, as you may all be aware, in December of 2004, there was the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, which impacted a lot of countries in the Indian Ocean Basin.
Several of the countries that were affected they are actually Asean member states.
In particular, there were four, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Myanmar.
This was one of the most devastating disaster events in the history of Asean.
And during that time, these are the number of fatalities recorded only in the Asean member states.
It's close to 200,000 fatalities and approximately $6.5 billion in terms of damages.
And this disaster did not only resulted to the impact on the loss of lives and damages, but there was also a resulting second type of disaster during that time.
It was actually the influx of support coming from well meaning countries who wanted to support the affected countries specifically and especially in Indonesia.
So this photo, the one that you're seeing on the right, was one of the aftermath of the tsunami.
Cosa villages were wiped out at the time.
And during that time, there was no document or framework in Asean with regards to coordinating disaster management.
That was one of the wake up call for Asean.
Right after the event, the Asean leaders conducted a special meeting on the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami.
The earthquake and tsunami was in 26 of December 2004.
Only a few weeks after that, on the 6th of January 2005, all the Asean leaders and also at the time, UN leadership was also invited to meet in Indonesia to discuss what would be the next steps and not just in response to the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, but also to ensure that in the future, there would be a more coordinated disaster management in the Asean region.
As such, only a few months after that meeting on 26th of July 2005, the AdMR or the Asean agreement on the ASR Management emergency response was signed by all the Asean foreign ministers.
This is a legally binding document in the Asean region.
It was fully ratified by at the time, it was still ten Asean member states, and it entered into force in 24 of December 2009 or four years after it was signed.
Currently, the latest Asean member state, which is a Timur Less is in the process of accession of ratifying all the agreements that has been signed and ratified by all the Asean member states before it joined Asean.
And after that, well, one thing that I would like to highlight as well in the AdMre is it already included specific languages on DRR, as well as emergencies.
And one of the activity as part of the Admir is the establishment of the A Center.
So two years after it was ratified and entered into force, the As Center was established on 17 of November 2011, and the rest is history.
So we also institutionalize our disaster management governance covering not just DRR but the whole disaster management spectrum.
And we also as a region, are collectively developed and approve, as well as in the process of implementing strategic documents, regional guidelines and frameworks.
These are operational and policy level documents covering the different aspects of disaster management, which also includes RN.
And the way the Asean region implements the AdMR or this legally binding document is through what we call work programs.
The work programs, they are every five years.
Currently, we are on the fourth cycle, which covers 2026 of 2030.
This contains the five year agenda of the Asean region in terms of disaster management and emergency response.
So specifically to the current work program, there are five priority programs.
First is on reassessment, monitoring, and early warning.
Second is on prevention and mitigation, both of these priority program one and two.
Covers a lot of DRR activities in the Asean region.
We also have priority program three on preparedness and response, which is more focused on the emergency response phase.
We also have on the recovery part, which is a priority P four, and finally global leadership on how we govern the disaster management in the Asean region and also how we envisioned for the region to be a global leader in terms of disaster management.
Just some examples of how we implement these priority programs.
These are some of the activities that we have under priority program one on risk assessment, monitoring, and early warning, some of the activities that we have on prevention and mitigation, on preparedness and response, on recovery, and lastly on global leadership.
If you want to know more about the Admin Work Program 2026 to 2030, please feel free to scan the QR code that you are seeing on the bottom left of the screen.
And specifically on the disaster response phase, currently right now, it's only showing here the 54 responses, but actually as we speak, we are currently responding to several flooding events in Myanmar and Lao EDR and so we are actually at 55 disaster responses.
But just to give you one example of how this AdMR mechanism was able to reduce disaster impact was actually one of the responses that we did back in 2023, which is on tropical cyclone Mocha in Myanmar.
This is one example of how it was in Myanmar before the implementation of the Ad mare and after it was implemented.
We are looking at a case study of two very similar tropical cyclnes.
One was cyclonrgs in 2008 and the other one was a cyclone Mocha, quite recently in 2023.
Both of them impacted Myanmar during the cyclone season, which is a May In terms of the landfall, although they are directly impacting different areas, they are close to each other.
The one in Cyclo Nargis is in the A Wore Delta, while the one in Mocha is in the Rakhine coast.
So these are very, in terms of location, these are very new to each other.
In terms of the wind strength, actually, cyclone mocha is stronger, and in terms of for those who are more familiar with the Suffer Simpson, Hurricane wind scale, the cyclone mocha is equivalent to a category five hurricane, whereas cyclonrgis is equivalent to a category four hurricane.
In terms of fatalities, as we know, the cyclongs was one of the most deadly disasters in the region.
There was a recorded 138,000 fatalities.
Now, in Cyclone Mocha, there's only 148.
Of course, there are still 148 people, but as you can see, there was a significant reduction in the terms of fatalities.
Likewise, in terms of cost of damages, these are the numbers during 2008 and 2023.
And if we are going to adjust it to the 2026 cost, there's also more than half in terms of the reduction of the cost of damages from 6 billion adjusted to the 2026 cost to 2.4 billion.
So what was different between the two? Of course, during cyclones, at the time, the capacity of Myanmar and the Asean region wasn't as strong as we are in right now in terms of early warning and in terms of what to do with the early warning information.
But in 2023, a few days before the landfall so the landfall of cyclone Mocha in the Rakayan coast was on 14th of May 2023, a week before that.
In fact, two weeks before that, we already saw that there's a brewing tropical cyclone in the Indian Ocean Basin.
In the Bay of Bengal specifically.
And a week before that, we already started sharing all of this early warning information with DDM Myanmar and it was sustained on a daily basis.
On 12 of May, we were already very certain that a cyclone would make a landfall in Rakhine and so we already offered assistance to Myanmar to help them with this DRR efforts for them to reduce the potential impact of the cyclone.
They accepted the offer of assistance from the Center, and so a few days after that, we were able to send our team into Myanmar to support them directly since we were expecting that there would be a cut in the communication capabilities of Myanmar.
And so we sent a small team of experts to help them with the DFA.
One of the things that they did at the time was to recommend for the Myanmar government, for the Myanmar authorities to take down all of the communication equipment in the airports before the landfall so that it won't be damaged.
Right after the landfall of the cyclone, they were able to put back their communication equipment, and so there was no cut in the communications at the time.
These are some examples of the photos of the team that we sent.
So we have information management experts that we sent to NIPTo at the time to help them with a analysis of the potential impact as well as recommendations on specific actions that they could do that Myanmar authorities could do to reduce the impact of the disaster.
One of the actions that they did is something that we have learned from some of the member states in the Asean region, such as the Philippines and Vietnam where they perform what they call preemptive evacuation.
Prior to the landfall, there was massive movement of people away from harm's way going towards some of the evacuation facilities in the areas.
These are some examples as well of the relief items that we supported.
These are regional relief items that was delivered to Myanmar and some of the analytical support that we provided to Myanmar as well.
These are also some of the people that we send.
We call this Asean era.
These are like the Uk members, but for Asean, we send them to the most impacted areas in Rakhine to interview the IDPs to learn directly from the affected communities what they need.
And so this is the main point of reference for the Asean region to identify how we could further support Myanmar at the time.
And also this information were used for the delivery and distribution of the relief items through our Asean era members directly to the affected communities.
So again, this is one example of how the legal or legally binding documents are used by the Asean region, not just for disaster management, but also for DRR.
This ends my presentation, and I look forward to the discussion.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr.
D Malik, for that very useful presentation, giving an overview of how AMR evolved, how it's been operationalized, how this has led to significant impacts on the ground in terms of disasters that have occurred.
Utilizing AMR is the example.
As you could see, there's significant reduction in lives lost and damage incurred due to these and I think your presentation highlighted very well practically how such arrangements could work.
So with that, I would like to thank all of our panelists for their presentations.
And just for our colleagues in the room, we are circulating a sign up sheet in the room.
So if you would like to receive a copy of these presentations, please put down your email address.
So since we have heard the range of issues currently under discussion, I would now like to open the floor for any questions, comments, or reflections from participants.
We'll probably take a couple of questions before coming back to the panel for their responses.
I also colleagues requesting the floor to indicate which delegation you're from as we don't have the name plates.
The floor is open.
I see Norway.
Thank you.
On behalf of Norway, Excellency, distinguished delegates and colleagues, first of all, thank you to UN DRR, and of course, the panelists for your excellent remarks and presentations today.
I have the honor to deliver this statement on behalf of a group of friends of disaster risk reduction composed of over 40 member states, committed to advancing this important agenda.
The group of friends underscores the critical importance of prevention and disaster risk reduction in building resilience across society and contributing to sustainable development.
Prevention matters, as we already learned through several examples, Armenia and others in Colombia recently.
It saves lives, protect livelihoods, and it reduces losses before disaster strikes.
As the international community considers a new international legally binding instrument for protection of persons in the event of disaster, it is important that disaster risk reduction remains front of mind.
It is simply reality.
Investing in disaster risk reduction reduces vulnerability, prevents the creation of new risks, and minimize impacts on economic assets.
It is more effective, more sustainable, and more cost effective than responding to disaster only after they occur.
We've seen this so many times even recently.
We reaffirm the continued relevance of the Sendai Framework and its emphasize on understanding risk, strengthening governance, investing in resilience, and enhancing preparedness for effective response and recovery.
Any new instrument should complement existing disaster risk reduction frameworks and contribute to a coherent international approach to disaster preparedness, response and recovery.
A strong focus on prevention, mitigation, and risk informed decision making will help reduce the human and economic cost of disaster, response and recovery, safeguard lives, and build more resilient communities worldwide.
Finally, you can count on our continued engagement as we work together to advance a prevention oriented approach and strengthen resilience for all.
Again, to the panelists and again to everyone for engaging, thank you so much.
Thank you very much for the statement on behalf of the group of Friends for disastrous reduction, which very much affirms what we've discussed today and what the panelists have presented as well.
The next speaker I have is from Brazil.
Sir, you have the floor.
Thank you very much for the panelists and most especially for the core group for organizing such an important debate.
Like the core group, Brazil also confers a lot of importance on prevention, especially as our countries and our communities ourselves, these past three years has been very hard on Brazil.
If there was one thing that we learned is that there is one single most important element for, be it prevention, I would also add preparedness and anticipation.
But if there is any most important driver for disaster reduction, this would be social cohesion, even more important than infrastructure.
And if they are drivers of vulnerability, those would be the most important inequality.
Here, we also incorporate structural inequalities in terms of gender, in terms of race, in terms of ethnicity, institutional capacity, not only in terms of the national government, but from global to local.
Digital and data gaps, especially in terms of early warning and disinformation in addition naturally to socioeconomic and environmental considerations that are very much related to the 2030 agenda on sustainable development and many other processes.
We would like to ask the panelists whether any of these other considerations you feel that they are also relevant to our work, especially as both the drivers of disasters but also the drivers of resilience are evolving so fast in 2026.
The second question and very much concurring with those that have highlighted the importance of us not going into a siloed approach, but rather a systemic approach.
What would be the legal implications of the proposed draft Article 9 and obligations under the Climate Convention, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, its Paris Agreement, But also most importantly, perhaps the recent ICJ advisory opinion on climate that has also put the importance of due Jilliz extremely there together with cooperation on the one hand, but also common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities on the order.
As we have heard and we concur that this challenge is a shared responsibility challenge, but in legal terms, when we go to climate, shared responsibility needs to be understood under the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities.
Those would be the two questions.
Thank you.
Thank you very much for those questions.
Next, I have Germany.
In this event and bringing us all together both from the legal side as well as from the to see side on the development and disaster risk reduction expert side.
Thank you so much, really.
I just wanted to come in also building on what my Brazil colleagues said, Germany, of course, also in our national submission has supported the inclusion of disaster risk reduction and we see great potential in it and having something on that in the convention, just also because I lack a little bit the legal background also for our understanding, my personal better understanding regarding Article 9, this obligation of conduct, yet remains a little bit on an abstract level and it tells governments what they should do, but there's no verification process whether they do it to which extent it is implemented.
Do you find the current wording sufficient or would you see that in order to actually make Article 9A reality, further additions to the convention, even in additional protocols would be needed.
Interested to hear your views.
Thank you very much.
Any other questions at this time? If not, perhaps I will revert back to our panelists for some reflections on what the colleagues have raised.
I'll give about 2 minutes for each of you to respond, perhaps starting with Professor Book Miller.
I think on these specific questions, I'm actually going to cede my time to my two colleagues.
These are areas that they have dug into a bit more.
On these particular fronts, I'm going to defer.
No problem.
Over to Professor Ansintorier.
Thank you.
Thank you for that.
First of all, thank you to the delegate of NOI for your support.
I think we're very much aligned in our efforts and I look forward to further cooperation on that.
Turning now to este a delegate from Brazil, very much agree with you, of course, that prevention is key.
I also very much agree that as part of prevention, and we know that anyone who is working, I know there are some people in the room here working on DRR not only from a legal perspective, we know that vulnerability is a central part as well as is capacity building.
Social cohesion, of course, the reduction of inequalities are absolutely central in that as is addressing the drivers of vulnerability.
You're driving the hazards as well as the vulnerabilities and that is absolutely central to addressing disaster and preventing disasters, as well as the preparedness and preparing for response.
I think that is when we come into the social cohesion and the capacity building, community building.
We know time and time again we've seen that this community building is absolutely essential.
I would be very happy to have further discussions.
I know my time here is very limited today.
Um, and let's see.
There was a lot of in terms of, I believe you also asked about the legal implications of draft Article 9 in the light of the Paris Agreement and the advisory opinion.
Here, I would actually come back to the discussion on coherence.
I think, if anything, this is just an absolutely a clarification and a follow up and putting it into the disaster context.
As I said before, these are obligations that are already existing.
I think, if anything, the ICJ advisory opinion made it very clear that there are pre existing obligations in relation to both the climate regime, environmental law and human rights that they have pointed out, and we have seen that time and time again.
I think this is, again, is strengthening coherence and it's not bringing new significant obligations, but rather enhancing coherence in the international legal system in the context of disasters and disaster risk reduction.
Turning now, I hope that is sufficient for now.
Turning now to my colleague from Germany.
Whether the current wording is sufficient, as I hinted out, I would like to have some elaborations, but I do believe that the current wording is enough.
I think prevention is absolutely central.
We need the wordings of prevention, mitigation, and preparedness in there as the continued openness, I would like to also just highlight, for those of you who are not international lawyers in the room, that there is an obligation of good faith, well established obligation of good faith as well for states to implement this.
I think we will see, and again, I'm very interested to see how we are developing the implementation mechanisms of this document.
I think that particular questions really come back to the implementation.
How are we going to implement this? I think that is a very important question moving forward this week and next year.
Professor Bartolin to complement the point.
I think it's relevant to work more on the need to avoid salute approach in this regard.
I think that's a common thrand in the overall discussion on the draft articles.
One challenge might be, let me say, text which is negotiated and discussed by legal scholars and then to be applied for disaster management authorities.
It's very relevant to keep these other constituencies of the treaty or more as of course, they have their own language, they have their own perspective and by the way, they are engaged in similar exercise since several times as has been the case, for instance, for disaster risk reduction or for climate change where the adaptation component, let me say, is disaster risk reduction through a different terminology.
The point is, of course, what the scope of the application.
Because for climate change adaptation, of course, the focus is on the effect of climate change while here we have a much more multi hazard approach, which is broader, which also relates to technological hazard.
It's good to also learn from what has been done in other areas of law in order to include such points in the current discussion here.
My suggestion for the delegation is to speak in the capital with different constituencies, with different expertise as to avoid that.
Let me say the discussion is kept within the room of the legal division, which the risk that then there could be a bit of division of understanding or not common understanding of what might be the text here, what is the current discussion in other forum.
Data point by Germany, whether it's enough or not, whether we might need more verification.
Again, that's up to the states.
If, let me say the states would decide in Bangkok and Et to have a very strong as verification system, that's easy.
Let's put mandatory reporting mechanism.
We can create whatever we want as we have multiple example in international law in which we can pick up any kind of verification mechanism we would like to have.
The other point is whether, let me say verification mechanisms are fit for the purpose of this treaty which is much more, I would say, grounded on cooperation approaches on let me say the idea that states in the application implementation goes for sharing common experience, challenges, opportunities as also the colleague from Asia has emphasized how a cooperative approach has been instrumental to put some of the obligation present in the treaty into concrete action, not with, let me say, oversight approach or with a checking approach on what states do, but trying to, let me say, favor a bit more cooperative perspective and sharing experience and put such experience in the ground for operational activity.
Let me say a bit more enthusiastic or a bit more prone toward a cooperative approach also for the oversight mechanism, which still would need to have a framework for having some sharing of experience which will be required in order to share such experience or such challenges and try to solve them in the future.
Thank you very much.
I'll give the floor also to Mr.
De Malik before we come back to Professor Book Miller to close up this segment.
You have the floor, Mr.
De Malik.
Thank you to questions from my colleagues from Brazil and Germany.
What I could offer is from a practitioner perspective, first on the inclusion of DRR aspects of prevention anticciplatory action into the PPED.
From the SAN experience, even though the Adré when it was enforced in 2009, it already includes language on DRR we started mainly on emergency response.
The primary limiting or enabling factor for a legally binding document to be fully implemented is not what's inside in that document, but rather the capacity of the member states to implement.
And so in the Aseana experience, even though again in 2009, we already have the DRR language embedded into the AdMRu The initial years of the Ana and the Asean region in implementing the Admir was mainly focused on emergency response.
It is just recently, perhaps in the past five years that we were able to gather more resources as well as develop the capacities of the member states and the Asean to implement the DRR activities that we have right now.
Next, on the sufficiency of the wording, from a practitioner's perspective, one thing that I could share is, of course, people change.
The ones that might be implementing the law right now won't be the same people that would be implementing the same law a few years in the future.
It must be very clear.
So that it wouldn't, you know, the understanding of the law wouldn't be depending on the people sitting in there because sometimes that's one of the experience bad experience that we have where the interpretation of how it's supposed to be implemented changes based on who is sitting or implementing that law.
Those are my interventions for these questions.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
And I'll give the floor to Professor Book Miller to close this up.
It deferred earlier just because I wanted to make sure specific questions around the environmental regime and so forth.
Marie did a great job.
One thing that's keeping me up at night that's very relevant to the social cohesion comment is that we have several moving pieces.
It's like we're trying to, as we famously say in American English, create the plane while we're flying it.
Pepid these negotiations are happening during a lot of movement around related instruments.
I noted Sendai, we've talked about climate, but we also have the sustainable development goals.
Very much on the table, again, also for 2030 and it's deeply, deeply linked intertwined with what we are attempting to achieve here with this instrument.
When we talk about coherence versus fragmentation, I am a bit concerned that that has not also been on the table with regard to that gear and what it is doing because, of course, disasters very infamously wreck sustainable development, and then the lack of sustainable development in turn creates further disaster events.
That's another piece, I think I would encourage all of us to think about how all of these pieces connect and certainly not to forget the SDGs.
Thank you very much.
Colleagues, that brings us to the end of our panel discussion.
We recognize that the time that we had today has been limited.
However, to support your continued engagement and further discussion on this issue, our panelists present here will actually be available this afternoon for informal one on one discussions on the legal aspects of the proposed convention here at the Vienna Cafe.
Meetings will be accommodated on a first come first served basis.
If you have any further questions or clarifications or wish to have a chat with any of them, please feel free to stop by.
Before we conclude, I wanted to check if there's any concluding remarks from our distinguished representative from the core group.
Mr.
Moderator, just to say that in 1970, there was a big cyclone which hit Bangladesh and 300000-500 thousand people were killed at that time.
Reporting system and mechanisms were not that good, so we don't know the exact number, but it was a heavy toll.
But now the recent one, which is Cyclone Ramel, Ramal around ten people were killed in Bangladesh by that cyclone.
The point I'm trying to make is that it's all about prevention and preparation, how you take preparation so that you can respond better when next disaster hits and we invested a lot that I have already mentioned in my speech.
I was deeply involved in the negotiation of Sendai Framework, which was held in Geneva and then finally subsequently adopted in, um, in Japan in Sendai.
At that time, as Professor has rightly mentioned, it's a soft law and it contributed a lot to norm setting regarding DRR, but we really need something that is legally binding so that the guidance of DRR, the provisions of Sendai or Hugo framework, these really, you know, um, come into reality.
So I again thank I DRR for bringing this conversation here so that the people who are, you know, having some concerns regarding whether this would be mutually exclusive, this will be, you know, um, contradict each other.
So I think now through this discussion, we will have a better understanding and those concerns will be addressed in a better manner.
Thank you so much.
Thank you very much.
With that, I think we're concluding with the key message that prevention works, it saves lives, it reduces costs, and it is a key component of protecting people in the event of disasters.
Thank you all for joining us this afternoon.
And as I mentioned, please feel free to join any of our distinguished panelists in the Vienna Cafe if you have any follow up questions.
Thank you and have a great afternoon.