Literature Review on Law and Disaster Recovery and Reconstruction

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (‘IFRC’) has been providing technical support to governments on the development of disaster risk management law for over 10 years as part of the overall strategic focus of the Secretariat and its members. In 2009, the IFRC General Assembly adopted Strategy 2020 which notes that ‘[a]ppropriate laws are crucial to ensure the speed and effectiveness of humanitarian assistance. Therefore, we emphasize the importance of national legal preparedness and international legal coordination through the development and promotion of disaster law, principles and rules’.

More recently, IFRC’s Strategy 2030 emphasises the need to ‘continue to invest in promoting and defending critical areas such as international humanitarian law and disaster law, leveraging the unique auxiliary status of National Societies with Governments’.

This literature review contributes to the work of the IFRC Disaster Law Program (‘IFRC-DLP’) to support governments in strengthening their domestic legal frameworks to enable more effective disaster recovery. Specifically, it is part of the preparatory analysis, research and evidence base to develop a set of recommendations for law and policy makers in the area of law and disaster recovery and reconstruction.