CHAPTER 16 Afterword: Environmental Disasters and Human Rights John H. Knox Many of the chapters in this book address the importance of strengthening links between the developing international law on disaster risk reduction, on the one hand, and older international environmental regimes, on the other. The present essay examines another relevant area that can often be overlooked by both the disaster and environmental regimes: human rights law. Specifically, it explains what a human rights perspective can bring to our ability to under- stand, prevent, and respond to disasters. To provide a context for the discus- sion, it begins by describing one particular disaster: a series of mudslides in the Caucasus that devastated the town of Tyrnauz, in the Russian republic of Kabardino-Balkar. 1 The Tyrnauz Mudslides Tyrnauz, which has about 25,000 inhabitants, is located high in the Caucasus mountains near Mount Elbrus, the dormant volcano that is the highest peak in Europe.1 The town is on the Baksan river, which flows down through the mountains to the Malka river just before the Malka joins the Terek, the major river draining the northeast Caucasus region into the Caspian Sea. Upstream of Tyrnauz, the Baksan is fed by two tributaries, the Gerhozhansu and the Kamyksu. For many years, the people of Tyrnauz have been aware that the Baksan and its tributaries are subject to massive mudslides, usually in the summer and early fall. In the 1950s, soon after Tyrnauz was developed as part of a large- scale industrial project, efforts began to protect the town. A feed-through mud 1 The facts are primarily taken from Budayeva v. Russia, App. No. 15339/02 (Eur. Ct. Hum. Rts. 2008), available at http://www.echr.coe.int. The spelling of the names in this chapter follows the spelling in the decision. Other sources give the name of the town as Tyrnyauz. Most of the inhabitants of Kabardino-Balkar are Sunni Muslims, and are ethnically either Kabardin or Balkar. © Peel and Fisher (eds), ���6 | doi ��.��63/97890043�88�6_0�7 454 Knox retention collector was completed in 1965, and in 1999, a mud retention dam was built upstream from the mud retention collector. A few months after the dam was completed, it was severely damaged by a mudslide. The Mountain Institute, a state agency that monitors weather hazards in the mountains, reported that reconstruction of the dam appeared infeasible in the short term, and that “consequently, the only way to avoid casualties and mitigate the damage was to establish observation posts to warn civilians in the event of a mudslide.”2 The Mountain Institute repeated these warnings in a series of written and oral communications to Kabardino-Balkar officials over the ensuing months, into July 2000. Nothing was done, either to repair the dam or to set up a system of observa- tion posts. On July 18, at about one hour before midnight, mud and debris began to flow into Tyrnauz, flooding some residences. The government later stated that this first mudslide caused no casualties, although residents claim that at least one person was trapped in the debris and drowned. The government and resi- dents of Tyrnauz also disagree about what happened next. The government describes an orderly evacuation process in which police drove through the streets calling on residents to leave and went to people’s homes to notify them and to provide assistance to the elderly and disabled. The residents claim that there were no rescue forces or organized assistance, and that the scene of the disaster “became a cauldron of chaos and mass panic.”3 What is not in dispute is that the next morning, July 19, the level of mud low- ered and the residents returned to their homes. Water, gas, and electricity were reconnected. Although the government later said that those who returned did so in breach of the evacuation order, there were no barriers or warnings to prevent people from returning, and they did not see police or other officers. In the early afternoon of the 19th, a second, much more powerful mud- slide finished the destruction of the upstream dam. Mud and debris, together with the wreckage of the dam, swept down the river. When the massive mud- slide reached Tyrnauz, it damaged or demolished some buildings, including a nine-story block of flats. Water from the river, forced out by the mud flow- ing downstream, overflowed the banks, and flooded a residential quarter. The town continued to be hit by a series of mudslides for the next several days, until July 25. 2 Id. para. 21. 3 Id. para. 29..