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1 The ethical gap
Reconciling intervention for natural hazards
Let us imagine that a national government is unable to provide adequate assistance in the aftermath of a natural hazard such as a hurricane, tsunami, earthquake and so on. Perhaps this is because they are unprepared for that particular type of event. Possibly it is because the government officials have themselves been killed or incapacitated by the emergency. It is plausible that the national government refuses to provide assistance to those affected within the country’s borders. Perhaps, in this case, the government does not see the real impact. Alternatively, a corrupt regime could be uninterested in helping a particular group affected by the hazard.
Current global norms and international regulations on the matter suggest that international relief providers may offer assistance (IFRC, 2007). However, the receiving states must consent to such assistance, and “donor” states are forbidden from forcefully interfering (Multinational, 2007; O’Donnell, 2016; United Nations, 2016). Such non-consensual interventions, it is argued, run counter to the goal of international peace inherent in the international agreements on international disaster relief and recovery (IFRC, 2007). Instead, national governments and international organisations should try to persuade the affected governments or those we can identify as having some level of authority within the country to accept offers of assistance.
It is reasonable to assume that an individual would hope for someone to help if life-saving or life-sustaining support was not forthcoming in the aftermath of a natural hazard. Therefore, I start from the position that we would all want to be provided with assistance post-natural hazard should we need it. Indeed, we should all be able to make a claim for assistance should the need arise. I will argue that those affected by natural hazards are no less deserving of assistance than those affected by other emergencies. For this reason, we should develop international policies for intervention and the use of military force to provide assistance (in very specific and rare cases) when a national government is either unable or unwilling to provide assistance to its people in the aftermath of a large-scale natural hazard, even without consent from the affected government, based on our human right to welfare.
1.1 Hazards and disasters
We may all think that we know what a natural hazard is (an earthquake, a hurricane, etc.). However, this does not mean that we have an easy time explaining when a simple natural hazard triggers or becomes a disaster situation. Often we simply know what counts as a disaster based on our own previous experiences. Disasters exist at the intersection of social, ecological, political and economic situations and some trigger event. War, conflict, gas explosions and building fires can all represent types of disasters. In this book, my focus is on natural hazards as the trigger event. Just as a disaster need not flow from a natural hazard, a natural hazard may not result in a disaster (UNISDR, 2017). For this study, though, I am particularly interested in the disasters that occur in the immediate aftermath of a critical natural hazard.
Sudden onset, high-intensity natural hazards are the focus of this analysis. A natural hazard, just like the dropping of a bomb or chemical attack, is a complex but specific incident which requires a specific response. Whilst complex emergencies such as famine, climate change and poverty are destructive, they are not the type of emergency which requires or normally triggers immediate, proportionate response as argued for in this book.1 Events that are commonly understood to be natural hazards include avalanches, earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, lightning, tornadoes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions and wildfires (National Geographic, 2015). This is not an exhaustive list by any means. To this list, I would add drought, hailstorms, snowstorms and possibly solar storms, among others (FEMA, 2013).2
A disaster occurring in the aftermath of a natural hazard will disrupt the normal functioning of society and “involves great harm to a large number of people” (Zack, 2011, p. 2; IFRC, 2007). Hence, while a disaster usually involves the destruction of property and casualties, it need not result in death. Disasters involve a hazard, existing vulnerabilities and the limited ability of those in authority to respond to the event (National Disaster Coordinating Council (Phillippines), 2010). Often occurring after a hazard, disasters in themselves are slow-onset; to focus only on the hazard would be to misunderstand the disaster situation (Kelman, 2019). Disasters are multi-layered, multi-faceted outcomes of societal problems; they are the after-effect of any number of intersecting issues – economic, social, cultural, technological or environmental – and vulnerabilities (Kelman, 2008, 2019). In this way, disasters are dynamic and, as explained by the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, often result from poor risk management from state agencies in coordination with relevant stakeholders (UNISDR, 2015). Ultimately, disasters create chaos: they harm the health and well-being of people in a given society (Quarantelli & Dynes, 1973). Harm to the health of people and property are therefore central components of a disaster.3
Meanwhile, Dynes suggests that there are four ways of understanding a disaster: “the physical agent [i.e. the natural hazard], the physical consequences of the agent, the way in which the impact of the physical agent is evaluated and the social disruption and social changes brought about by the physical agent and its impact” (cited in Quarantelli & Dynes, 1977). Here Dynes claims that the physical event’s impact on society is key to defining disaster. Still, Quarantelli notes that the background and experiences of the person describing the “disaster” will drastically impact how a disaster is defined (1998, p. 242). So, while a disaster has recognisable features and measurable impact, it is not simply the impact which characterises a disaster.
Interestingly, even if these are not temporal or quantifiable explanations of disasters, disasters are still always situated in a specific time and place (Convery et al., 2008, pp. 6–7; Neal, 1997, p. 259). Note that this does not include the size of the natural phenomenon, nor does it include the number of people affected. This is consistent with Neal’s suggestion that disasters are best understood qualitatively and not temporally or quantitatively (1997). And so, for the purpose of this analysis, I take from these characterisations of the term that a disaster is the impact of a physical event on society in a harmful yet indeterminate way.
Importantly, disasters in the aftermath of a natural hazard trigger are sometimes irrevocably and causally linked with human factors. For example, anthropogenic climate change has been linked to an increase in ocean temperatures (NASA, 2020). Warmer oceans may be linked to stronger hurricanes (Category 4 or 5), which are more destructive (Buis, 2020). Then, vulnerability (including poverty), under-development and corruption can contribute to a process by which a natural hazard becomes a disaster (Lewis, 2010; Blaikie et al., 2003). Hence the idea that “natural disasters” are “natural” is a fallacy.
The disasters studied herein are “a combination of hazard and vulnerability” but, importantly, with a specific focus on natural hazards (Kelman et al., 2016). This combination and intersection of meteorological events, hazards, vulnerability and situations is absent from philosophical enquiry and political planning. However, a philosophical approach to disaster response in the aftermath of a natural hazard will help us investigate our duties and responsibilities with this type of trigger.
In addition, humanitarian intervention literature (and associated policies) purposely removes “natural disasters” – defined as earthquakes, volcanoes, etc., so “natural hazards” – from its focus, suggesting that they are separate emergency types (Wheeler, 2010; Archibugi, 2004). Indeed, the intervention literature (separate from the development and relief literature) does not engage with natural hazards and discuss how to respond or intervene after a tsunami or earthquake whether we consider those hazards to be natural or human-influenced anyway, even if the underlying societal and environmental vulnerabilities are the same.
Hence, I am interested specifically in “natural hazards” because they are excluded from the relevant literature and from international policy. If we want to talk about the social construction, resilience to natural hazards and the problems that different groups will have towards becoming resilient, we must first put disasters resulting from natural hazards into the appropriate literature.
1.2 Scope
Whilst not quantitatively or temporally definitive, I focus my analysis on a particular type of post-natural hazard disaster. Consider the following. In 2014, Chile experienced a series of earthquakes which killed six people. According to official reports, close to a million people were displaced due to the threat of a resultant tsunami (RT, 2015). This would qualify as a disaster triggered by a natural hazard under my use of the term. This is because, whilst there were not a high number of fatalities, the earthquake created a huge disruption to society: escaped prisoners had to be re-apprehended; special forces had to be called in to guard supermarkets and private homes from looters; and adobe houses in rural communities unable to withstand the earthquake crumbled, causing death and homelessness (Franklin, 2014).
There are often earthquakes which cause the ground to rumble, make people dizzy and disrupt the normal daily routine. Whilst still a natural hazard, these earthquakes would not qualify as disasters under my use of the term. You will note that I accept that an event can trigger a disaster even when there is a low fatality rate. However, simply making a lot of people uncomfortable is not sufficient to qualify a trigger event and its consequences as a disaster. The point here is not to offer a number of affected people which qualifies an event as a disaster, but rather to show that the natural hazard’s impact event must be large in scale and severe in at least some aspects.
Military intervention for the purpose of natural hazard disaster support is legally prohibited by the United Nations Charter (United Nations, 2015). Chapter VII of the UN Charter establishes that force can only be used in situations that constitute a threat to international peace. Furthermore, intervention into the domestic affairs of another state (disaster response is considered a domestic affair) is likewise prohibited by Article 2(7) of the UN Charter (Massingham, 2009, p. 812). Still further, the Responsibility to Protect (RtoP), as adopted by the UN at the 2005 World Summit, excludes intervention in the aftermath of a natural hazard (ICISS, 2001; UN General Assembly, 2005).4
Discussions of whether we should intervene militarily after a natural hazard first occurred during the development of the RtoP (see Chapter 6) and then were re-energised when Cyclone Nargis hit Myanmar in 2008 (see Chapters 5 and 6) (Bowley & Erlanger, 2008; Evans, 2008). Without a standing policy, I expect that a large-scale disaster which resembles the emergency in Burma will trigger a second debate on the topic in the future.
Notably, a natural hazard intervention norm which accounts for the stipulations of the UN Charter yet allows for intervention – like the norm of RtoP – does not exist.5 Instead, the rules outlined by the UN Charter set a precedent and deter any interventions of the kind that I suggest in this book. My hope is that my argument for the development of a natural hazard intervention policy, based specifically on the human right to welfare, adds to this debate and contributes to ethical solutions proposed so that a solution might be found before it is needed.
Considering the purposeful absence of natural hazards from legal intervention, this argument is contentious. Despite the likely rare use or necessity of the policy suggested herein, the central thesis should at least be considered when people are affected by a large-scale natural hazard. Furthermore, it should be discussed and prepared for well in advance of the policy’s implementation.
I propose policy suggestions because a legal structure, based on the ethical requirement to allow intervention post-natural hazard, does not exist. Sovereignty (see Chapter 7), legal precedent and norms of international law (Chapter 3) stand in the way of a robust discussion from taking place, let alone a policy being developed.
I set out the scope of my argument here but recognise that, due to space constraints, I will not be able to discuss all elements. Additionally, I will not address harms directly caused by human actions or the disasters triggered by non-natural hazards.
First, then, I will not discuss harms that have been directly caused by human vulnerabilities or those disasters to which human activity has directly contributed to the occurrence (see Kelly, 2014). For example, the looting and police brutality that occurred in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina contributed to the ongoing crisis situation. However, these are knock-on effects from official inaction in the aftermath of a natural hazard. Likewise, I will not comment on the poverty situation (an aspect of vulnerability) in Louisiana which contributed to citizens’ inability to evacuate and hence the exacerbation of the disaster. My focus would instead be the government’s poor response to the hurricane and their lack of direct support to those affected by that hurricane instead of their response to the looting or poverty, although I accept that they are related.6
Additionally, explicitly “human-made” disasters are purposely absent from my analysis because they are either directly caused by humans or influenced by human action, which leads to difficult debates about responsibility and compensation. Admittedly, there are instances where there is an overlap between “natural hazards” and “human-made” categories. However, for the purposes of this study, it is both possible and useful to make the distinction between natural hazards and purely man-made disasters and to focus on the former.
For example, as a consequence of the anthropogenic global warming, natural hazards – floods, hurricanes and so on – are now more frequent. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has noted that increased global temperatures contribute to changes in the likelihood of the occurrence and the strength of extreme weather (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2013). However, climate-change-related disasters will not be discussed in my thesis because they are long-term issues with ample warning time for responders and policymakers.7 The flood or hurricane and its impact on the lives and well-being of those affected will be discussed.
I also note that some disasters are too strongly linked to human-made factors to be adequat...
