The Challenges of Implementing International Housing Legislations in Disaster Situation in Malaysia: An Updated Review

This article reviews the practice and implementation of international legislations in providing emergency housing in Malaysia. The objective is to highlight challenges and level of influence of international understanding in local circumstances. A consideration of appropriate and specific legal tools is beyond the scope of the guidelines provided by the international treaties. International guidelines only present the legal context for the implementation of emergency housing ‘responses’ and do not represent a law. The guidelines highlight some of the legal considerations that should be taken into account when planning settlement strategies, programmes and project matters. These guidelines outlined are based upon the consideration of law and human rights. It is important to reflect these guidelines on advocacy tool, to understand the socio-political in the context of regulatory awareness and also to understand the rights of affected groups in legal context. As a result, the disaster victims and other members of the general public are more concerned about the availability of resources to support life recovery, ignoring any weaknesses of the local government. At the scene of a disaster, officials are often caught in the middle between working with ethics and programmes’ implementation whilst they have failed to fulfill requests from the disaster victims and public. Hence, there is still a need to develop laws further, on both national and international levels, in order to deal with several aspects of emergency housing.