Attachments
When civilians are trapped in areas of active conflict, there are often calls for the implementation of measures to improve their protection and maintain or restore their access to humanitarian relief items and essential services. This may include the use of modalities like humanitarian corridors, humanitarian pauses, humanitarian notification systems, evacuations, and safe zones. While each of these mechanisms can be an important tool under specific circumstances, recent crises have shown that there is not always a full understanding of the operational considerations and risks associated with the mechanisms or an awareness of how they are (or are not) anchored in international law.
To address this, NRC has developed a series of explainers that aim to unpack each of these modalities in greater depth. This explainer focuses on humanitarian notifications, and outlines:
- What is a humanitarian notification
- When and where a humanitarian notification might be used
- The drawbacks and risks of humanitarian notifications
- What is required to make a humanitarian notification successful
- Other questions for consideration around humanitarian notifications
- How humanitarian notifications are reflected in international law
- Examples of past humanitarian notifications that can be learned from
- Further resources
While the explainers are primarily designed for NRC staff, we hope they can also serve as a resource for the broader humanitarian community. For further information, please contact Caelin Briggs in the NRC Geneva Office.