IRIN Web Special on Civilian Protection in Armed Conflict

The failure of the international community to halt the Rwandan genocide has underpinned the debate on civilian protection ever since, Credit: Corinne Dufka

While the primary responsibility for the protection of civilians rests with state and non-state parties to conflict, there is also a web of partnerships for protection comprising states, UN agencies, regional organisations, international and national NGOs, and other actors.

• Provisions for the security and safety of civilians
• Humanitarian access to vulnerable populations
• Engagement with armed groups in an attempt to secure access and civilians’ safety
• The relationship between civil and military elements in delivering humanitarian assistance

Humanitarian agencies need to make sure that protection does not fall through the cracks – at the field level and in operational planning, according to Elissa Golberg, Deputy Director of the Human Rights, Humanitarian Affairs and International Women’s Equality Division with the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade.

"Sometimes this demands a more holistic approach," she said. "There are times when it’s great if beneficiaries get material assistance, but if they don’t feel physically safe, then obviously that’s problematic."

The matter of civilian protection is not only difficult in practice, it is also poorly understood by some humanitarian actors who do not understand their roles and responsibilities – or the limits of these – under international humanitarian law, according to some observers.

"Physical protection is a matter of power – of police, armies or whatever – and no NGO or humanitarian organisation will be able to provide physical protection to people that are going to be bombed," Francoise Bouchet-Saulnier of Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) told IRIN. "This idea of physical protection amounts to security. It can only be guaranteed through public order mechanisms. When IHL refers to protection, it refers to the defence of the legal status and the rights of civilians, and other ‘protected persons’, in times of conflict."

Humanitarian law has no power to stop war or to find peaceful settlement, or to give military protection to civilians, according to Bouchet-Saulnier, but it has the power to limit the level of violence on civilians to an acceptable level – meaning that they can survive the war. "If this threshold is crossed, humanitarian actors have to trigger other mechanisms involving states' responsibility to respect and make IHL respected," she added.

"There is a strict limit on what kinds of outcomes it’s possible to achieve through humanitarian action and I think it’s important to recognise that – and to recognise the limits of responsibility that go with that, said James Darcy, a research fellow at the UK-based Overseas Development Institute (ODI).

"Short of armed intervention by a third party, there is no system of protection, legal or otherwise, that can actually protect people if the warring parties are not motivated to do so themselves," Darcy told IRIN, warning of the dangers of humanitarian assistance being used to substitute for international political engagement.

"The humanitarian system may be able to influence what happens, or it may not – and frequently it cannot," he said. "I think it would be a dangerous fallacy to think there is a system out there that can protect people in any real sense, and that if only humanitarians could 'get it right' – and get the right strategies – then people would be safe."

Accepting the limits of humanitarian action, agencies still need to recognise that they can all have a role to play in protection, and explore how their organisations can better account for this, according to Golberg.

"Sometimes people say: ‘Well, protection, that’s just UNHCR [United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees], ICRC [International Committee of the Red Cross] or UNICEF [UN Children's Fund]’ but, in fact, it’s not," Golberg told IRIN. "It depends on how you interpret protection. People sometimes believe protection is limited to legal efforts when, in fact, it also relates to physical security and material wellbeing. And that can be as important to a civilian as having someone promote the law."

Darcy said there was also much to be achieved in the area of "bearing witness to violations" and related advocacy to achieve a consciousness-raising not only within the humanitarian sector but also among the general public, "without which it’s very hard to generate any political pressure on governments".

Humanitarian agencies in conflict situations engage in negotiating access with armed combatants on the ground, an area where they have to be careful not to be misled, exploited or depart from humanitarian principles, according to observers.

"The whole philosophy of IHL is to link power with responsibility," said Bouchet-Saulnier. "It’s very important that relief organisations engage in negotiations with belligerents in order to set up what kind of responsibilities these belligerents accept and endorse towards the populations they control and towards relief organisations."

This "requires you to be very sure what is happening to any input you are making into a given situation; to minimise the chances of relief aid, for example, being diverted; to be very clear how it is your actions are being perceived, and so on," according to Darcy.

"This is an important process," she added, but it has to have limits, because negotiation means that you will not give up everything for the sake of access. IHL gives key references about what is acceptable and what is not."

Improving implementation

Much work had been done to strengthen the international policy agenda on the protection of civilians in armed conflict, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan reported to the Security Council in November.

A series of UN Security Council resolutions on civilian protection, women, peace and security, and children and armed conflict have recently improved and established clearer standards and norms, often drawing together international humanitarian law and human rights law.

"The important part there is always ‘unpacking it’ and making it relevant, not just for the political context of [UN headquarters in] New York but also for the field," Golberg told IRIN. "Certainly, I think the aide memoire is one important way of doing that."

The hope is that the Security Council’s aide memoire on civilian protection adopted in March 2002 will be a useful instrument to ensure that the issues of protection of civilians are systematically taken into consideration – both within the UN system and by humanitarian agencies more broadly.

The document lists a number of objectives, such as obtaining access to vulnerable populations, separating civilians from armed elements, justice and reconciliation, the specific needs of women and children, addressing ‘hate media’, and considering the humanitarian impacts of sanctions.

The aide memoire has come to represent "the 10 Commandments" of protection and a backbone of humanitarian training on the issue, according to the UN.
[www.reliefweb.int/library/documents/2002/Advocacy/SPRST20026%20aide%20memoire.htm]

At the political level, the aide memoire would serve as useful institutional memory for incoming Security Council members and guide the UN in the daily work of assuring the protection of civilians, according to UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Kenzo Oshima.

Diagnostic tools such as the aide memoire meant that protection policy work deliberated in New York was now "making its way into political capitals and, ultimately, into the communities experiencing conflict", he told the Security Council in December.

Experts have also pointed to the significant use and development of field guides and manuals, such as: The Sheltering Tree and the Good Practices Manual for the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement; codes of conduct and checklists for both humanitarian workers and belligerents; or principled frameworks for assistance and action, like Memorandums of Understanding and basic ground rules.

Growing the Sheltering Tree Credit: UNICEF

For example, The Sheltering Tree shares the methods that humanitarian workers have developed to help civilians living in zones of conflict or under oppressive regimes, describing ways to exchange, test and create new information on the promotion and protection of rights through humanitarian work. [see www.unicef.org/pubsgen/sheltering-tree]

The challenge for humanitarian agencies is not just to have a protection lens in their operations but also to look at the tools available, such as the aide memoire, and see how they can help them improve policies and practices for protecting civilians.

The importance of advocacy and dissemination, particularly prior to conflict, was emphasised by the ICRC’s Francois Bugnion, who argued that "if soldiers, combatants, the civilian population understand at least the basic principles of humanitarian law, this already reduces the risk of violations".

Securing safe and unimpeded access

Under the Geneva Conventions and additional protocols, impartial and humanitarian relief services must be allowed access to vulnerable populations (subject to the consent of the belligerents), and there is special protection laid down for particular vulnerable parties (including the sick and wounded, and children).

Provisions of international human rights law further strengthen the position, offering protection of the freedom of movement of all, including aid workers, and the right to survival and development – including medical treatment, food and shelter.

But aid workers continue to witness the denial of safe and unimpeded humanitarian access – with material assistance blocked or diverted, humanitarian personnel denied access, allowed only restricted access or denied the safety to fulfil their mandate.

Access will continue to be a crucial issue for humanitarian agencies in a broad range of situations of armed conflict, and many difficult policy questions arise. How can humanitarian agencies intervene in conflicts where there is little or no accountability? What should be their role in prolonged conflicts where there is no international will to enforce a settlement? How should agencies providing relief assistance respond to massive violations of human rights?

Humanitarian agencies, coming from different perspectives and working to different agendas, respond differently to these quandaries – some trying to delimit their operations to impartial relief of suffering, others arguing that the work can be allied to political goals (such as democratisation) that will reduce suffering in the long run, and still others trying to tread an uneasy "third way", where principle and pragmatism blur, according to observers.

In this situation, the British-based ODI says, the very notions of neutral, independent and impartial humanitarian action are being challenged as agencies attempt to work out, and rework, as situations evolve, "a practical ethical framework for humanitarian action suitable for the current political context".

The Humanitarian Policy Group of the ODI has also highlighted the difference between agency access in a conflict situation and broader humanitarian access, arguing that agencies are often too ready to sacrifice rights and protection issues – for instance, the moral imperative to speak out about abuses – to the god of access.

If there is any agreement on what it means to take a principled approach, according to ODI, humanitarian action should promote respect for rights, including the right to assistance, and should not undermine these rights.

"Humanitarian organisations are not only responsible for delivering immediate needs," Bouchet-Saulnier of MSF told IRIN. "They play a role in the legal protection mechanism established by the Geneva Conventions."

"Protection relies, in practice, on a whole network of responsibilities set up by international humanitarian law and refugee law. It is not always well understood and implemented by either humanitarian actors or international forces," she said.

It is a considerable policy challenge for humanitarian agencies, then, to maximise the assistance and protection provided in keeping with their humanitarian imperative, while minimising the diversion of assistance or manipulation of their efforts by belligerents.

"There are all sorts of operational strictures that go with the principle of neutrality that I think many of the non-traditional humanitarian agencies – the new breed, if you like – certainly struggle to adhere to, or may even be unaware of," according to Darcy.

Continued