HRBA Portal

Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
OCHA is the part of the United Nations Secretariat responsible for bringing together humanitarian actors to ensure a coherent response to emergencies. OCHA also ensures there is a framework within which each actor can contribute to the overall response effort.

UN HABITAT
UN HABITAT works with disaster and risk management, post-conflict situations, and displaced populations, providing humanitarian and emergency setting support and development.

World Food Programme (WFP)
The WFP is the world’s largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger worldwide, and coordinates the delivery of food to emergency settings.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is mandated to lead and coordinate international action to protect refugees and resolve refugee problems worldwide. Its primary purpose is to safeguard the rights and well-being of refugees. It strives to ensure that everyone can exercise the right to seek asylum and find safe refuge in another State, with the option to return home voluntarily, integrate locally or to resettle in a third country. It also has a mandate to help stateless people.

International Strategy for Disaster Reduction
UNISDR’s mandate is to serve as the focal point in the United Nations system for the coordination of disaster reduction and to ensure synergies among disaster reduction activities.

United Nations: Humanitarian Affairs
A UN website with links to humanitarian themes, international bodies, and resources.

The Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC)
The Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) is the primary mechanism for inter-agency coordination of humanitarian assistance. It is a unique forum involving the key UN and non-UN humanitarian partners. The IASC was established in June 1992 in response to United Nations General Assembly Resolution 46/182 on the strengthening of humanitarian assistance. General Assembly Resolution 48/57 affirmed its role as the primary mechanism for inter-agency coordination of humanitarian assistance.

Oxfam America
As a humanitarian organization, Oxfam America’s mission is to do whatever it can to reduce suffering and save lives during emergencies—whether they are caused by conflict or by natural events such as earthquakes, floods, or drought. To move fast and efficiently, Oxfam America partners with local groups who know the people, the land, and the political context of the region in which the disaster strikes.

Relief Web
A website featuring frequently updated maps of countries and emergencies, latest natural disasters, policy and issues.

Relevant International Standards

Several UN agencies have adopted a specific and distinctive human rights-based approach to programming in humanitarian and emergency settings including: the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), World Food Programme (WFP), The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and UN HABITAT.

Specific Instruments

Efforts made to address populations in emergency settings should be in accordance with the provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Declaration of the Rights of the Child or other instruments of international law.

Geneva Convention (1950)
This Convention and its additional protocols protects persons taking no active part in wartime or conflict hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria. It also makes provisions for the wounded and sick so that they shall be collected and cared for. It prohibits the violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture; the taking of hostages; outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment; and the passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.

Declaration on the Protection of Women and Children in Emergency and Armed Conflict (1974)
This Declaration calls for the strict observance of the Declaration by all Member States to prohibit and condemn all acts of aggression, repression, and/or inhuman treatment toward women and children in emergency and armed conflict settings, including measures such as persecution, torture, punitive measures, degrading treatment and violence. It also provides for: women and children belonging to the civilian population and finding themselves in circumstances of emergency and armed conflict in the struggle for peace, self-determination, national liberation and independence, or who live in occupied territories, so that they will not be deprived of shelter, food, medical aid or other inalienable rights, in accordance with the provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Declaration of the Rights of the Child or other instruments of international law.

There are numerous UN General Assembly Resolutions regarding Humanitarian and Emergency settings. The following are a sample of recent and relevant Resolutions, and a searchable index of all UN Resolutions can be found here.

• Resolution 65/264. International cooperation on humanitarian assistance in the field of natural disasters, from relief to development
• Resolution 65/133. Strengthening of the coordination of emergency humanitarian assistance of the United Nations
• Resolution 64/290. The right to education in emergency situations
• Resolution 62/166. Respect for the purposes and principles contained in the Charter of the United Nations to achieve international cooperation in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms and in solving international problems of a humanitarian character.