Why the Red Cross Wants a New Treaty for People Caught in Disasters.

as local as possible, as international as necessary. That's the principle, it should guide the treaty. And if we do that, I think this will minimize our potential musical debate. Welcome to Global Dispatches, the podcast that helps you understand the world through conversations with the people who know it best. I'm your host, Mark Leon Goldberg, an international affairs journalist who's been covering global politics for more than two decades. Enjoy the show, and please visit globaldispatches.org to learn more, sign up for our newsletter, and support independent journalism with a global perspective. Welcome to Global Dispatches, I'm your host, Mark Leon Goldberg. I am joined today by Jagann Chapegan, Secretary General, and CEO of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the IFRC. Welcome, Jagann. Thank you for having me. I wanted to talk with you today about a potential treaty that the IFRC is supporting. Next year in 2027, governments are meeting to negotiate a potential treaty on the protection of persons in the event of disasters. Essentially a treaty that sets rules of the road for how to respond to disasters like earthquakes and floods. Just to kick off, what is the problem that a treaty like this is intending to solve? Why do we are responding? There are few things that emerge during those response. The one has always been how to mobilize international solidarity, and we don't have a consistent approach across countries. It depends on the government of that particular time in particular country. In some countries, of course, the facilitated in some countries because there's lack of legal framework, even when they want to facilitate, it's always not done in a way it improves the efficiency of the global solidarity. Of course, as IFRC, we always prefer a response to be as local as possible, and that's always been our motto. But at the same time, they are our situation. The international solidarity is needed, when the local capacity is far exceeded by the crisis, global solidarity is needed. And few things we saw. One is a lack of legal framework and how this solidarity should come into the country. Simple things like customs clearance. Actually, our teams did some research and what they found was, in sort of a normal time, it takes 11 days to do the custom clearance. The customs clearance for humanitarian goods, for like tents and foods or, you know, equipment that you're trying to ship in. And sometimes, at the time of disasters, it can take longer because the system is overwhelmed, but a lot of time also what happens is, our research is so that up to 60% of the goods that are sent, because people who want to help are actually not needed and are not appropriate for that particular context or culture, meaning that the system gets overwhelmed. So that 11 days, actually, tend to be longer, especially in a country where the capacity is completely over. That was really the first. The second thing, also, our study shows that the tariffs, you know, that are imposed on the humanitarian goods coming into the countries, sometimes they seem to be even higher than the manufactured goods. The every tariff we saw was, I think it was around 17%, which is almost double the tariffs of manufactured goods. Of course, the sovereign nation can put tariffs. Of course, we prefer that the humanitarian goods are exempted from this. But even if they decide to put it, this cannot be or they should not be double the tariffs that are imposed on manufactured goods. And multiple times, what we have also seen is the political relations of different countries, sort of either facilities or doesn't facilitate, and also a lack of unified laws in the countries makes the coordination extremely difficult. And this is something we have been doing for the last 25, 26 years, supporting a number of governments. I think we've supported more than 50 governments now to develop more unified disaster-sponsored law in the country, so that different departments within the governments have a predicted modus operandi. And hopefully reduce the number of stamps you need to get. In some countries and I have been involved on some of the response, you need to go to 19 different departments located in 19 different locations in the city. And it just delays the old response. So these are some of the very practical day-to-day things that we have seen, that we have witnessed. And when we compare this with some of the other things, then we've found, you know, there are a number of agreements that exist in the world. There are agreements, of course, to protect the astronauts. You know, more than 100 governments have signed a treaty that if something happens to an astronaut, actually more than 100 governments have signed a treaty for something like that. But we don't have a treaty on protection of people, you know, millions and millions of people who get impacted. So it's not to say that there should not be treaty for protection of astronauts. Of course there should be. And there must be. But if we have thought about that, why we haven't thought about the people here and often. And that's basically our angle we have really tried to highlight. We even have treaty to protect the birds when they cross the borders. Yes. Transboundary migration of birds treaty. On this potential treaty, other protection of people impacted by disasters. So you outlined a few elements of what might be included in it as governments go to negotiate it next year, including facilitating customs and entry of humanitarian goods, kind of cutting through red tape. That's often required to respond to as a disaster in real time, trying to reduce tariffs or eliminate tariffs on humanitarian goods. You know, looking at this really sudden disaster in your home country, Nepal today, I mean, it appears that seemingly out of nowhere, a glacier or a piece of a glacier might have fallen off a mountainside, crashed into a river, causing this massive, almost like tsunami in a river that, you know, has killed hundreds of people are missing. It's very early right now. A really disaster that kind of came out of nowhere, almost like an earthquake, just a sudden onset natural disaster. Using this example today, what are some of the barriers that you foresee the international community having to overcome in order to swiftly respond to what's happening in Nepal? Absolutely. And I think maybe the one of the thing I didn't mention earlier is also having standards. As I mentioned, the sometimes 60% of the goods coming are not appropriate standards are simply not appropriate. And it just overwhelms the system. And actually, a lot of times people spend more money trying to manage the unneeded or not needed goods than actually focusing on the need. So the standard and the predictability of how a collaboration could work is something missing at the moment. That I think the treaty should try to address. Now, if we look at, I think that the context of Nepal, of course, the government has quite swiftly mobilized their national capacity at the moment. Also from the IFRC, you know, we managed to also mobilize some resources just before I came for this call from our emergency fund to support the activities of the local debt cost. They have already mobilized hundreds of balloon tiers to go to those areas, but not only in the affected areas, but the downstream. It's sort of that the river flows all the way down. Actually, also, my home district goes through one of the major rivers where the water is flowing into and then it will cross into India. And then the river continues to flow close to Bangladesh. So it's also the repairing the downstream populations. And the Red Cross volunteers are already doing it. And we have released the emergency grant to to enable them to mobilize at the scale and the number that is needed. Now, should the Nepal government decide to seek an international assistance? So the one is clear standards that what should come to the country, what should not come to the countries, and the solidarity that many countries will offer, if there is a treaty that outlines the standard, it will just be easier. Right now, I'm already seeing a number of governments calling Nepal government and also the Red Cross saying, what do you need? What type of things do you need? You spend so much time and energy instead of managing the crisis on trying to figure out what is needed of what is standards in what quantities. You know, the treaties should help make it smooth. I mean, we still have to do this war, but treaty brings the predictably. The second thing is, when you have a predictable rules, the coordination becomes easier. When multiple countries will start sending the goods, I witnessed that in Nepal when the 2015 earthquake happened. You know, multiple countries are trying to come with different standards, the clinics coming with different standards, the rescue teams are coming with different standards. What do you mean by different standards? I mean, is it something as simple that like certain tents require certain tent poles, and the tent poles don't always match the tent? Like, what do we mean by that? But also the quality of the tent, you know, when we were actually distributed with the people, they didn't have to be a certain standard. If it is tent, although we don't necessarily promote the tent, it's a little bit of a total solution, but any goods that come, if they don't have a certain standards, one is of course, it doesn't help the people, the way it should. The second thing also is it creates tension in the communities. That somebody got a certain quality and somebody got completely different qualities and it also fits the misinformation and disinformation saying that all organizations are buying these things and you know they got the money for a good quality at distributing forward quality it fits into that negative friendship and it also creates the community sort of yeah sometimes even tension you know I have witnessed the situation on the ground when different goods are distributed differently and sometimes it starts breaking down within a few weeks so that is one part the second part also is that when they have deployed goods and teams at the same standards you can make them interoperable you know if we have two health clinics deployed and if they are following a similar standard you can make them interoperable on the ground so that they can be flexible enough to respond to a changing needs in a large crisis and that's one of the thing in IRC we have learned that lesson you know we have what we call the emergency response team best in number of national Red Cross-Red Council societies but those emergency response units either they are in Hong Kong or in Canada we have exactly the same standards and we can deploy the people from Hong Kong to a Canadian hospital and they know exactly how to operate it because they work on exactly the same standards and I think if we can do the same thing at the stats level imagine the improvements we will make and any of these interoperability of the good teams systems that are deployed you know the process of creating a treaty at the United Nations is oftentimes a long one and a fraught one it doesn't always have to be long in fraught but it can be long in fraught because inevitably kind of politics are injected into it to me as you describe it this does not seem to be a treaty in which there's like an obvious political objection to it but I'm curious to learn you know as you move or as we move next year into earnest negotiations over what might be included in a treaty to get like a draft text that presumably year a few years down the road would be voted on and approved what are like the political dynamics around it you know are there certain groups of countries highly supportive of certain elements other countries that are perhaps wary of certain elements like what's the kind of forth coming debate that you foresee unfolding between countries at the UN the one of the thing I could see coming potentially is that many states feeling that they may be losing their national sovereignty that if this treaty could be a way to impose international deployment to their countries and you know many countries have now become capable they're proud they're proud that we can look at for our own population and if it is perceived as the international community can come and impose a certain way of response the government can be sensitive and I think it's a very valid contract so one of our advice has been there can be a safeguard put in the treaty that this is not about really impacting a shrubbering decision upper shrubbering instead it really focuses around what can complement the national efforts that's why you know as local as possible as international as necessary that's the principle it should guide the treaty and if we do that I think this will minimize our potential political debate the second thing we could come and we have been very mindful when we are advising the states is also not to mix it up with the conflicts and the wars because there is already international momentum law that guides how a conflict environment or war environment international and conflict needs to be managed and supported so this could be again second potential thing but we have been very clear on advising that you know ISL is already there for so long we need to make sure that it doesn't in any way negatively impact the value and the contributions that I accept just because this treaty in its inception is intended for natural disasters not sort of conflict or crises situations but for you know what we saw in Nepal with this flash flood or an earthquake sudden on natural disasters it's really the one conflict non-war related disasters you know which are not covered by the ISL which is already existing on very successful instrument in my view so you kind of outline what you foresee as being concerns by countries that are in the receiving end of the aid countries that maybe they think that their own sovereignty might be infringed if they accede to this kind of rules of the road for how to accept aid and do aid in natural disasters what about the countries that are typically the donors and the providers of aid what are some of their concerns that you're hearing going into this potential treaty negotiation process probably the same concerns also because sometimes when you look at now even some of the donor countries they are now impacted particularly by climate related disasters I mean right now you know with the heat the access death that we saw in Europe this summer has been I mean I'm sure we'll get the actual number later but it will be in thousands now what could happen is that if this is perceived as you know global solidarity is open without the concern for the national sovereignty it could also be that the certain countries can also come to these countries you know there are diaspora communities there and say that you know yeah I also need to support my diaspora community even if you are a donor country can happen so that's why I think the donor countries could have a similar concerns because they do want to make sure that you know they are in charge of the solidarity and support in their own countries and the same thing will go also with the IHL because the donor countries are also engaged in many international crisis themselves so they do want to make sure that IHL is protected when we develop the new treaty my sense it would probably the two concerns that could apply to everybody but I think the lot of donor governments might find a treaty to make their contribution to go more efficiently and utilize more efficiently so I do feel that at this with some of the countries I have had something to talk to they seem to be rather supportive because it increases the value for money when it is a better coordination it's more efficient and when it is predictable it increases the value for money so broadly I see that support for this approach but as you said when it's getting the negotiation a different angles could come which we haven't talked through so you know I've covered like many treaty negotiations in my career covering the United Nations and typically there's like a country or a group of countries that are sort of championing like the cause that are the ones that kind of put it on the agenda of other countries what are those countries in the context of this potential treaty like who are the ones that are kind of out there and trying to kind of steer negotiations at this early stage I think a couple of them I mean who have been championing this even before this sort of gathered momentum has been countries like Philippines or Bangladesh you know we have multiple disasters and crisis all the time and they do attract a lot of global solidarity and at times you know it makes it very difficult to coordinate in a type of high end in Philippines I was personally involved in that response and that time I was pleasantly surprised how open the Philippine government was and new ideas and how to coordinate because it was a overwhelming disaster and actually it was after the type of high end experience that Philippine has been really championing and new work without teams they have been working the Bangladesh also has been and I think there are few other for example the Pacific countries the the island countries have also been very active in supporting this type of initiative I was recently in Africa visited some governments and they also thought that oh this makes sense so I do feel there is quite a positive support and we have been trying to support technically because of how our experience on the disaster law work in multiple countries in different parts of the world what's the next steps on on this whole process you know I know in 2027 that there should be negotiations do you know anything about like when those negotiations might happen or what context they'd happen in what comes next year in this process of eventually potentially getting to this kind of treaty some of these governments are already actually pushing discussions already this year I think since April they have been was quite a lot and this is also one of the reason we decided to do this campaign so I've got a social astronaut campaign to support some of those discussions and hopefully we can rally the public opinion towards that efforts now of course Parasya because we are not in governmental body so we will not have a seat on the table in that sense it will be driven by the states and we would be sort of supporting that negotiation on whatever process they agree among themselves as you know they decide the process among themselves but our push has been that because there is a bit of a momentum so not to wait for too long so I think some discussions are already happening this year and I think I'm sure during UNGA there will be another push by number of the government to take this forward but we will be supporting from one step behind on everything the states need. Jack and mr secretary general thank you so much for your time and we'll follow this story this is going to take a few years but we'll we'll follow it the whole whole way thank you thank you Thanks for listening to Global Dispatches. The show is produced by me, Mark Leon Goldberg. It is edited and mixed by Levi Sharpe. If you are listening on Apple podcasts, make sure to follow the show and enable automatic downloads to get new episodes as soon as they're released. On Spotify, tap the bell icon to get a notification when we publish new episodes. And of course, please visit Global Dispatches.org to get on our free mailing list, get in touch with me, and access our full archive. Thank you.