Governing crisis: Uncovering the features of disaster legislation worldwide

Dr Clara Egger (Erasmus University Rotterdam) will give a presentation on the ‘DisLex’ project: ‘Uncovering the features of disaster legislation worldwide’. Dr Egger’s presentation will be followed by a reflection on governance in crisis by ISS Professor and Humanitarian Studies Centre Director Thea Hilhorst. There will also be time for a Q&A.

What is DisLex?

Strengthening the ability of societies to disasters is a priority global goal encapsulated in the Sendai Framework. Key to such agenda is legal preparedness, namely the adoption of disaster law that organizes effective disaster response while safeguarding human rights, democratic governance and promoting the participation of disaster-affected communities.

Despite international guidelines on how to best design such legislation, little is known about the state of disaster legislation worldwide and the extent to which national law complies with international standards. This neglect is particularly surprising as disaster legislation plays a key role in organizing the relationship between the various stakeholders of disaster management; funding their activities and ensuring the accountability of disaster response efforts. 

DisLex fills this gap by using computational text analysis methods to create the first dataset comparing the features of disaster law in 100 countries over 10 years (2013-2023). This presentation will shed light on the initial results of the project and provide a comparative account of the features of disaster legislation worldwide.