Ethical principles relating to disaster risk reduction and contributing to people’s resilience to disasters

This draft document aims to establish, for the whole process of dealing with disasters (before, during and after), what moral obligations the various parties have - local victims and rescuers alike - in the light of existing rules of general international law, and particularly those relating to international law of human rights. It concerns both natural hazard-related and technological disasters.

This draft was developed by the Executive Secretariat of the European and Mediterranean Major Hazards Agreement (EUR-OPA) in response to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe's invitation, in Recommendation 1862 (2009), to prepare a draft ethical charter on resilience to disasters.