Humanitarian assistance

Weapons Convention is facilitated by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and the assistance received through the contributions of member states and the utilisation of experts within and external to the OPCW. It also involves the coordination and delivery of specialised services from national agencies and other international organisations involved in providing emergency humanitarian assistance. The OPCW will continue its work on the cooperative efforts with many member states to maintain the effort to development, implement and train for an effective delivery of assistance in accordance with the provisions of the Chemical Weapons Convention. 

To coordinate the establishment and maintenance of permanent stockpiles of emergency and humanitarian assistance by States Parties, in accordance with subparagraphs 7(b) and 7(c) of Article X 6 To inspect the items for serviceability7 ... 

To make emergency, supplementary, and humanitarian assistance available to the requesting State Party, in accordance with the provisions of the Convention9 ... 

The modular approach is based upon the current capacity of the OPCW in terms of offers of assistance by States Parties (in the form of material and personnel), and the capacity of the Secretariat to store, maintain, transport, and distribute the items and resources most likely to be needed should a CW-related emergency arise. The components of this approach would involve a central stockpile of resources and equipment in the Organisation s headquarters, available for immediate dispatch to a requesting State Party, and in addition, stockpiles of resources which have been offered by States Parties and organised in the form of modules. The modules would be categorised into basic assistance modules (BAMs) for emergency assistance, and specialised assistance modules (SAMs) for supplementary and humanitarian assistance. The Secretariat would store BAMs and a very limited stockpile of humanitarian assistance, while both BAMs and SAMs would be stockpiled by the States Parties. The basic module could consist of pallet-packed items, ready to be airlifted within 12 hours after the request for assistance has been received. The BAMs in the headquarters stockpile will be identical to the BAMs stored by States Parties. This will facilitate identification, packing, dispatch, and the delivery of assistance. 

Military support to civil authorities is the final tier in the nation s disaster response system. Federal resources that may be implemented in the event of a major biochemical or radiation disaster are the U.S. Army Special Medical Augmentation Response Teams. The mission of the SMART teams is to provide short-duration medical liaison to local, state, federal, and DOD agencies responding to disasters, civil-military cooperative actions, humanitarian assistance missions, weapons of mass destruction incidents, or chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or explosive incidents. There are 37 SMART teams, including two burn SMART teams operated by the U.S. Army Institute of Surgical... 

Genter for Disaster and Humanitarian Assistance Medicine, http //www.cdham.org/... 

Aberle, C. J., Bethards, K. J., Orsega, S. M., Ricciardi, R. (2003). Designing a medicai humanitarian assistance course for advanced practice nurses in the uniformed services. Military Medicine, 168[9], 729-732. 

Lee, S. J. (2001). Preparation of family nurse practitioners at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences for their role in humanitarian assistance operations. Retrieved March 27, 2007 from http //www.lrc.usuhs.mil/dissertations/ pdf/LEE2001.PDF... 

The purpose of the Humanitarian Charter and the Minimum Standards in Disaster Response was to improve the effectiveness of humanitarian assistance initiatives, and to increase the accountability of international agencies, and arguably even the donors participating in humanitarian efforts. The charter and the standards are based on the belief that first, all possible steps should be taken to alleviate human suffering that arises out of conflict and calamity, and second, that those affected by a disaster have a right to life with dignity and therefore a right to assistance (The Sphere Project, 2000). 

Griekspoor, A., Collins, S. (2001). Raising the standards in emergency relief How useful are the Sphere minimum standards for humanitarian assistance British Medical Journal, 323, 741-742. 

Legal Challenges in the Provision of Humanitarian Assistance The Case of Non-international Armed Conflicts. 

This chapter deals with humanitarian activities in general and is not confined to the narrower activity of humanitarian assistance or relief actions, such as the delivery of foodstuffs and medical supplies. Whatever the humanitarian activity, such as visits to prisoners of war or medical care for the wounded and sick, external humanitarian organizations are required to cross the border of a State. Therefore, State sovereignty is relevant in all cases of humanitarian activities carried out across borders. 

See also. Article IV(2), Institute of Intemationeil Law s resolution on Humanitarian Assistance of 2 September 2003 Article 14(1), International Law Commission s draft articles on protection of persons in the event of disasters, adopted on its first reading, A/69/10, para 55. As Article 31(3)(c) of the 1969 Menna Convention on the Law of Treaties provides, any relevant rules of international law applicable in the relations between the parties should be taken into account in interpreting treaties. 

Furthermore, extermination is an act that constitutes a crime against humanity in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. According to the Statute, extermination includes the intentional infliction of conditions of life, inter alia the deprivation of access to food and medicine, calculated to bring about the destruction of part of a population. Therefore, as long as the other requirements are met, the obstruction of humanitarian assistance could amount to a crime against humanity. 

In the Popovic et al. and Tolimir cases, ICTY found the accused guilty of crimes against humanity partly because of their involvement in the restriction on humanitarian assistance to Srebrenica and Zepa. In those cases, ICTY found that... 

Barber R (2009) Facilitating humanitarian assistance in international humaniteuian and human rights law. Int Rev Red Cross 874 371-397... 

Dinstein Y (2000) The right to humanitarian assistance. Naval War College Review LIU, pp 77-91... 

International Committee of the Red Cross (2014) ICRC Q A and lexicon on humanitarian access. International Committee of the Red Cross, Geneva International Institute of Humanitarian law (1993) Guiding principles on the right to humanitarian assistance. Int Rev Red Cross 297 519-525... 

International Committee of the Red Cross, Geneva Plattner D (1992) Assistance to the civilian population the development and present state of international humanitarian law. Int Rev Red Cross 288 249-263 Rottensteiner C (1999) The denial of humanitarian assistance as a crime under international law. Int Rev Red Cross 835 555-582... 

Ryngaert C (2013) Humanitarian assistance and the conundrum of consent a legal perspective. Amsterdam Law Forum 5-2 5-19... 

Sandoz Y et al (eds) (1987) Commentary on the additional protocols of 8 June 1977 to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949. International Committee of the Red Cross, Geneva Schindler D (1994) Humanitarian assistance, humanitarian interference and international law. In Macdonald R (ed) Essays in honour of Wang Tieya. Nijhotf, Dordrecht, pp 689—701 Schwendimann F (2011) The legal framework of humanitarian access in armed conflict. Int Rev Red Cross 884 993-1008... 

Torrelli M (1992) From humanitarian assistance to intervention on humanitarian grounds Int Rev Red Cross 288 228-248... 

Gottlieb G (1972) The United Nations and emergency humanitarian assistance in India-PaMstan. 

Helton A (1992) The legahty of providing humanitarian assistance without the consent of the... 

Jakovljevic B (1987) The right to humanitarian assistance legal aspects. Int Rev Red Cross 260 469 84... 

Luopajarvi K (2(X)3) Is there an obligation on states to accept international humanitarian assistance to internally displaced persons under international law Int J Refugee Law 15 678-714... 

Naqvi and Pabst (2(X)4) Humanitarian assistance in armed conflict. Conference of the Luxemburg Group 24-25 May 2004. Int Rev Red Cross 856 879-916... 

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