When disaster destroys lives, homes, livelihoods and dignity, relief is necessary. But relief alone is not justice. Communities affected by catastrophic climate-related disasters have a fundamental claim to a response that is prompt, effective and adequate and the international loss-and-damage architecture must be capable of delivering it.
One month ago, the Bhotekoshi and Trishuli rivers surged through northern Nepal. The floods devastated Rasuwa, Nuwakot and Dhading, destroying homes, roads, bridges, businesses, hydropower infrastructure and livelihoods.
The human toll is staggering. It has been reported on 25 September that 1,453 people had lost their lives and almost 6000 remained missing, with more than 1,100 people displaced. It has been estimated that the overall damage and losses amount to around 4–5 percent of Nepal's GDP.
Nepal has responded with extraordinary national mobilization. Government institutions, security forces, local authorities, civil society, volunteers, humanitarian organizations and international partners have worked to save lives and reach isolated communities.
The international response has also begun. The United Nations and humanitarian partners launched a US$49.6 million emergency appeal aimed at reaching more than 84,000 affected people. But an emergency response is only the beginning. The deeper question is: What do the victims of this disaster have a right to expect from the international community after the first emergency phase has passed? The answer should be clear: not charity alone, but an effective pathway to remedy and reparation.
Remedy is not a favour
International human rights standards have long recognised the importance of an effective remedy when rights are violated. The UN Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation establish that victims should have equal and effective access to justice and receive adequate, effective and prompt reparation for harm suffered. Reparation may include restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, satisfaction and guarantees of non-repetition.
This principle carries particular moral force in the context of climate disasters. A person who has lost a home needs shelter immediately. A family that has lost its breadwinner needs income support. A farmer who has lost land, livestock or crops needs the means to recover. A child whose education has been interrupted needs access to school. A community whose health facilities, water systems, roads and bridges have been destroyed needs those services restored. These are not merely statistics in a post-disaster assessment. They are rights, dignity and human lives.
The distinction between relief, recovery and reparation therefore matters. Relief keeps people alive. Recovery enables communities to rebuild. Reparation seeks to address the harm suffered and restore dignity, rights and livelihoods as fully as possible. A serious loss-and-damage response must be capable of recognizing all three dimensions.
Govt must seek compensation under ‘loss and damage’ mechanism:...
Nepal's losses cannot be reduced to a humanitarian appeal
Nepal's National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority has estimated that the Rasuwa-Bhotekoshi disaster caused more than NPR 408 billion in damage and losses, while reconstruction and recovery could require approximately NPR 723 billion. It estimated immediate relief and short-term recovery requirements for the following six months at approximately NPR 8.7 billion.
The numbers expose the scale of the challenge. But even these enormous figures cannot capture everything. What is the value of a life lost? What is the economic value of a family's displacement? What is the value of a community's cultural heritage? What is the cost of children losing months or years of education? What compensation adequately reflects the trauma of a family searching for a missing loved one? What financial assessment captures the destruction of social networks and the loss of future opportunities? This is precisely why the international conversation about loss and damage cannot be reduced to accounting. Loss and damage is ultimately about people.
The FRLD must now demonstrate what “response” means
The Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage was created to assist particularly vulnerable developing countries in responding to economic and non-economic loss and damage associated with climate change. Its purpose is therefore fundamentally different from ordinary development assistance.
Nepal's disaster presents an important test of whether that purpose can be translated into timely action. The question that Nepalese civil society should put to the Fund is straightforward: If the Fund cannot urgently respond to a catastrophe of this magnitude, when will it respond? The FRLD should urgently convene an emergency meeting to consider Nepal's situation and establish a mechanism for rapid support.
That demand does not mean abandoning accountability or financial safeguards. Nor does it mean asking for procedures to be ignored. It means designing procedures that recognize an elementary reality: in a disaster, delay itself can deepen the harm.
A mechanism that takes so long to respond that affected communities have already exhausted their savings, accumulated additional debt, lost livelihoods and entered another season of vulnerability cannot be considered an effective emergency mechanism. Speed is therefore not merely administrative efficiency. It is part of effectiveness.
Prompt, effective and adequate
These three words (Prompt, adequate and effective) should become the standard against which the international response is judged.
Prompt means support arrives when it can still prevent further deprivation not months or years after the critical period has passed. Effective means support addresses the actual needs of affected communities rather than simply disbursing money through mechanisms that do not reach those most affected. Adequate means financing is proportionate to the scale and nature of the harm.
The UN framework on remedies makes clear that reparation should be proportional to the gravity of the harm suffered. For Nepal, this means that recovery financing cannot be limited to rebuilding physical infrastructure. It must also address livelihoods, housing, health, education, displacement, psychosocial wellbeing, cultural heritage and the particular vulnerabilities of women, children, older persons and marginalised communities.
It has already highlighted the concerns of affected women who have suddenly become heads of households and are asking how they will rebuild their homes, support their families and repay loans taken by deceased spouses. These questions should shape the international response.
From victims to rights-holders
Perhaps the most important conceptual shift is to stop viewing disaster-affected people only as beneficiaries. They are rights-holders. They should have access to information about available support. They should be able to participate meaningfully in decisions concerning recovery. Their particular needs should be recognised. Mechanisms for assistance and reparation should be transparent and accessible.
The UN Basic Principles explicitly recognise access to information concerning violations and reparation mechanisms as part of the framework of victims' rights. This principle is highly relevant to climate finance.
Affected communities should know: What support is available? Who is eligible? How much has been mobilized? Who makes the decisions? How will resources reach local communities? What mechanisms exist for complaints and accountability? How will women, indigenous and marginalized communities participate? What happens when assistance is inadequate? A credible loss-and-damage system must answer these questions.
Nepal's tragedy should become a turning point
Nepal's disaster should not be treated as another entry in a long list of climate catastrophes. It should be an opportunity to establish a precedent for what a genuinely people-centred loss-and-damage response looks like. The FRLD has an opportunity to show that international climate finance can move with the urgency of a humanitarian emergency while retaining transparency, accountability and community participation.
Nepal should ask for an emergency meeting. It should ask for rapid-response support. It should ask for financing that does not deepen debt burdens. And it should insist that recovery be designed around the rights and dignity of affected people. Because rebuilding a bridge is not the same as restoring a community. Reconstructing a house is not the same as restoring a family's security. Replacing an asset is not the same as repairing a life. And humanitarian relief, however essential, is not the same as reparation.
The international community has spent years negotiating the architecture of loss and damage. Nepal now presents an urgent opportunity to demonstrate whether that architecture can work when it matters most. The principle should be simple: when people suffer catastrophic loss, the response must be prompt. When their rights and dignity are harmed, the remedy must be effective. And when the scale of loss is immense, reparation and recovery must be adequate.
Nepal is not asking the world merely to express solidarity. Nepal is asking the world to make solidarity operational. And for the Fund established to respond to loss and damage, there can be no more important moment to begin.
The author is a practitioner on the issues of effective remedies and reparation. Most recently, she served as a member and spokesperson at the Commission for the Investigation of Enforced Disappeared Persons.
