The Turkish Red Crescent Society international disaster response law: 1999-Marmara earthquake, case study

National disaster law and policies, regional, bilateral and international agreements, declarations and regulations regarding the disaster response law in Turkey within the framework of the 1999-Marmara Earthquake are discussed in this study. To this end, the call for international assistance, the access and operation of foreign relief organizations in the country, personnel, relief supplies and equipment, relief coordination, types of assistance and the issue of accountability regarding the assistance will be discussed after an introduction of our national disaster management system with its legal and corporate aspects. This study also includes discussions on the experiences of past international response operations, learned lessons, the determination of how legal regulations had been/could not be practically implemented, examples of successful implementations or difficulties and the functioning of the system; well and disfunctional parts of the system, all in light of the information obtained from the participant organizations in the response phase of the 1999-Marmara Earthquake.