Disaster Law

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The United Nations Conference on the Protection of Persons in the Event of Disasters

January 8, 2026

Introduction On 15 December 2025, the UN General Assembly decided to convene the United Nations Conference on the Protection of Persons in the Event of Disasters (PPED). In 2024, the General Assembly had decided to conclude a legally binding instrument on the topic. (This was discussed in detail here). However, the modalities and details of such a conference were deferred to the 80th session of the General Assembly. This year, the General Assembly decided that the conference will take place in Manila, Philippines, from 25 January to 12 February 2027 and, if necessary, for an additional two weeks in August 2027 (the resolution adopted by the General Assembly has not yet been issued as an official UN Document, however, the draft resolution adopted by the Sixth Committee — which was ultimately adopted by the Assembly—is available in the Committee’s report under symbol A/80/456). The draft resolution was sponsored by 44 States from all regions and adopted by consensus in both the Sixth Committee and the plenary of the General Assembly.

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Dystopian International Law

September 30, 2025

There is now a whole genre of scholarship in which international lawyers ruminate on the disastrous state of the world – Philippa Webb and Lydia Kim recently did a good survey of it here on the blog. Driven partly by a fear of missing out on all the angst, and partly by the need for self-therapy,…

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Foregrounding Displacement in the Treaty on the Protection of Persons in the event of Disasters

September 11, 2025

This week, the leaders of the Pacific Island States will have their annual meeting at the Pacific Islands Forum to discuss key issues impacting the region. In recent years, leaders have adopted significant regional declarations and frameworks concerning the impacts of climate change and disasters, including the 2023 Declaration on the Continuity of Statehood and the…

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From Act of God to Act of Law: Rethinking Natural Hazards Disaster through the ICJ’s Climate Change Advisory Opinion

August 11, 2025

On 23 July 2025, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued a landmark Advisory Opinion on the obligation of States in respect of climate change. Nowhere in the text does the Court meaningfully engage with the concept of “disaster.” Although the Court engages the term three times across more than 450 paragraphs (¶328, 376, 383), none of…

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The Case for a Climate-Conscious Convention on the Protection of Persons in the Event of Disasters

July 9, 2025

In December 2024, the United Nations General Assembly took an extraordinary step: it adopted, by consensus, a resolution deciding to elaborate and conclude a legally binding instrument on the protection of persons in the event of disasters by 2027, based on the International Law Commission’s 2016 draft articles. This decision marks a rare instance in recent…

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