North American Humanitarian Response Initiative: DRR and Response Preparedness

It is a privilege to be with you today here at ASIL, in my current capacity as a Project Lead with the North American Humanitarian Response Initiative (NAHRI). At the heart of my comments today are essentially two main themes. First, all of our Initiative efforts over the past twenty-four months remain deeply intertwined with the ethic of Sendai and continue to be so. Second, while I hesitate to use the word “law” when I am working within the project—it can make those who are not in law a bit nervous—you will see with regard to NAHRI that the fundamental challenges that we have been attempting to work through are in fact legal challenges, and in the end I believe the solutions are also legally based. It is within this spirit that I will give my presentation.