International disaster relief law and article 38(1)(c) of the statute of the international court of justice: The forgotten source of international law

Disaster mitigation in international disaster relief law operates largely in the area of soft law, with various institutions encouraging the adoption of guidelines and best practice standards by national governments. Current international law regulation of disaster risk reduction is scarce-no conventional obligations require states to mitigate disasters within their own territories. Further, the primarily internal nature of such requirements means customary international law, best used to regulate external state behavior, struggles to govern disaster mitigation. However, when examining the existing international law for state disaster mitigation, a third source of law may be most appropriate-the general principles of law recognized by civilized nations. This chapter explains how general principles as a source of law could be used to develop international law with regard to disaster risk reduction, using a case study of wildfire risk management.