Attachments
OVERVIEW
The current dynamics and conduct of armed conflict as well as the absence of effective mechanisms to mediate root causes of conflict and displacement have contributed to a global record high of people in need of protection, including displaced people. The regional dimension of many conflicts requires a strategic operational engagement, ensuring a protection continuum during flight and in situations where civilians are unable to move and seek safety.
Civilians are increasingly bearing the burden of armed conflicts. They often find themselves close to violence, attacks and insecurity, requiring humanitarian organisations to increasingly operate in situations of active conflict. At the same time, it is especially in such high-risk environments that humanitarian protection needs are higher due to the increase in violent incidents against civilians and risks thereof. Another key feature is the fragmentation of armed groups with often opportunistic alliances and shifting allegiances, at times across countries and continents, which results not only in more complex conflict dynamics, such as rapidly shifting frontlines, but can also bring a new degree of unpredictability into an armed conflict, potentially increasing the risk for civilians.
For humanitarian organisations, operating in such environments entails a number of particularities, challenges and constraints, such as remote management, insecurity or access limitations. This impacts on the way humanitarian organizations operate, in particular for protection outcomes, which requires proximity to affected people.
For the military, protection of civilians’ frameworks have evolved considerably since the failures of the international response in Bosnia and Rwanda. By the late 1990s, some member states of the UN sought to develop a framework that would override state sovereignty and give the international community a right to intervene without the consent of a host state. In 2001, an international commission developed the “Responsibility to Protect (R2P)” framework, which argued that states forfeit their sovereignty when they commit gross violations including genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes, and crimes against humanity (The International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS), 2001). The R2P framework asserts that the international community has three responsibilities for addressing such violations: a responsibility to prevent, react, and rebuild.
Foreign military interventions in Libya and Afghanistan carry lessons for military planners on protection of civilians. First, clear indicators are needed for defining successful protection of civilians within a mandate. Second, plans for mitigating civilian casualties need to be made in advance of every mission, including methods for investigating reports and making amends. Third, a successful counter-insurgency strategy may not be adequate if it is not followed up with security sector reform. These lessons highlight the need to apply a PoC lens across the spectrum of conflict, anticipating gaps, and preparing contingency plans with humanitarian agencies and other partners.
One aspect which requires particular attention in these settings is humanitarian civil-military coordination (UN-CMCoord). Much of the friction in humanitarian military relations is due to a lack of understanding particularly in situations where humanitarian space is shared with contingents much less used to interact with humanitarian actors (e.g. the Russian Armed Forces in Syria or Turkish Armed forces in northern Syria). The sole purpose of humanitarian assistance is to save lives and alleviate suffering of people in need as a result of a humanitarian crisis, be it a complex emergency or a natural disaster. Humanitarian assistance is provided based on need only and in adherence to humanitarian principles of humanity, impartiality, neutrality and independence.
Humanitarian and military actors need to understand each other’s roles and mandates. It is crucial for humanitarians to stay independent from political and military objectives, hence being perceived as distinct from military actors and objectives might require a certain degree of physical distance. At the same time, providing assistance may at times require support from the military, without impacting negatively on the operational independence of humanitarian action..
At the same time, Military actors may seek to establish relationships with civilian actors and the civilian population to support military objectives, e.g. enhance the acceptance and image of troops, seek intelligence or ensure support of local communities. Humanitarian actors will acknowledge these activities to avoid duplication with their own, but would provide support or information that supports the activities of military actors exclusively if these are based on humanitarian need, for instance aimed at PoC or concerning the security of humanitarian operations.
Regardless of the situation – complex emergency or natural disaster – dialogue between military and humanitarian actors is crucial. There is a need to establish context-specific coordination mechanisms and to build and maintain relationships of trust and confidence to share information, for example regarding security and at times even conflict analysis to operate effectively and, for humanitarian actors, to achieve protection outcomes. In this respect, guidance endorsed by the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) on appropriate interaction between humanitarian and military actors was developed at global level (see below).
In October 2017, the Global Protection Cluster convened a round-table of humanitarian agencies, military officials and civil-military coordination experts in Geneva as part of its series of discussions on international humanitarian law to examine why humanitarian civil-military coordination deserves attention in trying to achieve protection outcomes.
Rather than focusing on theory the roundtable examined at length the relationship between humanitarians and militaries in practice.
Some issues and questions discussed at the round-table included:
» How to best engage with military actors on protection and how civil-military coordination impacts protection outcomes? What is the practice in the field?
» Do humanitarian actors know how to use protection data (incl. from other sources such as civilian casualty recording or on the impact of the use of certain weapons) to humanise a conflict and engage with armed forces?
» Are humanitarian actors able to read, understand and analyse a conflict context and are we in a position to obtain relevant information from armed actors or other relevant actors?
The round-table did not attempt to reach conclusions but to canvass ideas and reveal the state of current practice: some operational examples are included below. Country examples illustrate the variety of civil-military relations and coordination mechanisms on the ground; dilemmas faced by humanitarian and military actors; as well as challenges and limitations faced by these coordination mechanisms.
The one-day meeting also drew attention to good practices on civil-military coordination for protection outcomes. Interaction on the ground shows that there is an appetite for closer engagement and coordination between foriegn and/or national miliitaries and humanitarian actors. The importance of enhancing knowledge of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) as well as the need for sustained engagement between military and humanitarian actors to ensure greater protection for crisis-affected communities is considered integral for the way forward. Focusing on building this knowledge as well as the necessary skillsets and capacities together with consistent engagement would inevitably contribute to greater protection outcomes.
WHAT ARE PROTECTION OUTCOMES?
A response or activity is considered to have a protection outcome when the risk to affected persons is reduced. The reduction of risks, meanwhile, occurs when threats and vulnerability are minimized and, at the same time, the capacity of affected persons is enhanced. Protection outcomes are the result of changes in behaviour, attitudes, policies, knowledge and practices on the part of relevant stakeholders. Some examples of protection outcomes include:
• Parties to conflict release child soldiers and issue explicit prohibitions, reinforced by disciplinary measures, to prevent child recruitment by their forces.
• National legislation formally recognises land tenure entitlements of displaced populations.
• Safe access to alternative sources of cooking fuel reduces exposure to the threat of sexual violence.
• Community-based preparedness and early warning mechanisms support timely evacuation of especially vulnerable individuals from areas where they are at risk of violent attacks.
• Community leaders renew and promote societal norms that condemn gender-based violence and its perpetrators.
• Community level protection committees influence security forces to change their conduct in and around civilian areas through on-going liaison and negotiation.
• Government authorities support the voluntary movements of affected persons by ensuring full access to information that enables free and informed decision-making