About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

22 Global Governance 369 (2016)
A Catalyst for Cooperation: The Inter-Agency Standing Committee and the Humanitarian Response to Climate Change

handle is hein.journals/glogo22 and id is 377 raw text is: Global Governance 22 (2016), 369-387 A Catalyst for Cooperation: The Inter- Agency Standing Committee and the Humanitarian Response to Climate Change Nina W T Hall Climate change is predicted to lead to an increasing frequency of natural disasters and humanitarian emergencies, yet scholars have not examined how the humanitarian community is responding to this issue. This article examines its initial engagement with the climate change regime and finds it was remarkably coordinated. Humanitarian agencies coauthored sub- missions to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, and the leaders of major humanitarian organizations spoke on co-organized pan- els on the humanitarian perils of climate change. In fact, the overarching trend was cooperation, not competition, among humanitarian agencies. This is an intriguing finding as it runs counter to the dominant account of a humanitarian marketplace in which actors are constantly competing for resources. Instead, this article suggests that the Inter-Agency Standing Committee played a significant role in mobilizing and coordinating hu- manitarian organizations' initial efforts. It highlights how and to what ex- tent institutionalized cooperation between international organizations enables further cooperation in new issue areas and regimes. Scholars of in- ternational organizations, global environmental politics, and humanitari- anism will be interested in how cooperation emerged in the humanitarian regime and shaped subsequent interaction with the climate change regime. Keywords: climate change, humanitarianism, international or- ganizations, cooperation, refugees, migration. THE STRONGEST TROPICAL CYCLONE EVER TO MAKE LANDFALL, TYPHOON Haiyan, hit the Philippines on 8 November 2013. It broke all previous records with wind speeds at landfall of 195 miles per hour, sea surges up to 13 feet, and leaving 1.9 million people homeless.I This storm was part of a trend of in- creasing hydro-meteorological disasters triggered by climate change, which the 2014 International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report profiled. Hu- manitarian agencies play an important role in addressing crises created by cli- mate change, particularly when countries do not have the capacity to respond. They have offered assistance to people affected by natural disasters, be it ty- phoons in the Philippines, floods in Pakistan, or droughts in the Horn of Africa. Yet states established today's principal humanitarian international or- ganizations with very distinct mandates that did not include responding to climate change or natural disasters. The United Nations High Commissioner 369

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most