The Status of Emergency Workers

Without safe, timely, and unhindered access to affected territories, humanitarian organizations and relief personnel cannot give prompt and efficient help to affected populations. To this end, a number of States have concluded bilateral or multilateral agreements (which sometimes evolved through a series of regional agreements) providing for specific types of legal and administrative facilitation. Facilitation measures can also be found in various guidelines, models, and codes of conduct developed by experts or by the humanitarian community, including the IDRL Guidelines. However, today’s legal framework is far from clear, and there are many gaps and weaknesses that constrain the IDRL in addressing bureaucratic hurdles that hinder the access of emergency workers to the affected territory and their functioning. The purpose of this chapter is to evaluate the effectiveness as well as the gaps and weaknesses of this body of law. After defining the issue at stake (Sect. 23.1) and analyzing what international law generally provides regarding the obligations of domestic authorities in allowing and facilitating humanitarian assistance in times of disaster (Sect. 23.2), the chapter examines the restrictions on entry into the country of operations (Sect. 23.3), and the restrictions on operations (Sect. 23.4) being faced by relief personnel, with special focus on the issuance of work permits and the recognition of professional qualifications; impediments to their movement; engagement, and termination of locally engaged personnel; opening of bank accounts; and issues of double taxation and insurance coverage. While the specifics on military personnel are further analyzed in Sect. 23.5; Sect. 23.6 is devoted to the analysis of the duties and obligations of disaster relief personnel in relation to relevant international and national laws. The concluding part of the chapter suggests, with a de lege ferenda perspective, how this complex legal framework could be amended to meet existing and future challenges.