tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/international-committee-of-the-red-cross-31329/articlesInternational Committee of the Red Cross – The Conversation2023-12-01T13:39:32Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2186862023-12-01T13:39:32Z2023-12-01T13:39:32ZWhy all civilian lives matter equally, according to a military ethicist<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562255/original/file-20231128-22-svbtks.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=103%2C25%2C8510%2C5613&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The scene in the Bureij refugee camp following an Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip on Nov. 14, 2023.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/IsraelPalestiniansBuriedInRubble/8cbb263c97d94eed9d66f53d553e2a3f/photo?Query=gaza%20destruction&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=735&currentItemNo=15&vs=true&vs=true">AP Photo/Adel Hana</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/89960/enough-self-defense-and-proportionality-in-the-israel-hamas-conflict/">Some commentators</a> have criticized Israel for causing <a href="https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/assessing-israel-s-approach-to-proportionality-in-the-conduct-of-hostilities-in-gaza">what is claimed</a> to be <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/11/14/gaza-unlawful-israeli-hospital-strikes-worsen-health-crisis">disproportionate harm</a> to civilians in its military response to Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack.</p>
<p><a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/118788/israels-war-gaza-morally-justified">Others have defended</a> Israel’s actions, claiming that such force – and the risk to civilians involved – is <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/defence-minister-says-israeli-forces-heart-gaza-city-2023-11-07/">necessary to eliminate</a> Hamas, which some Israelis believe poses an <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/gantz-israels-war-against-hamas-is-existential-and-carries-no-time-limit/#:%7E:text=The%20former%20defense%20minister%20and,%22Zionist%20and%20democratic%22%20values.">existential threat</a> to Israel.</p>
<p>As of Nov. 25, according to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/25/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-death-toll.html">health officials in the Gaza Strip</a>, more than 14,000 Palestinians have been killed, the majority of whom are women and children.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/11/10/what-winning-the-war-means-for-israelis">But one of the arguments</a> given by defenders of Israel’s actions is that, tragic though these deaths are, the harm inflicted on civilians is proportionate because it is outweighed by the importance of destroying Hamas. </p>
<p>But what does “proportionate” mean in the context of civilian deaths? And how should we assess Israel’s claims of proportionality against critics who argue that Israel’s actions have caused disproportionate harm to civilians? As a <a href="https://philosophy.case.edu/faculty/jessica-wolfendale/">scholar of war crimes and military ethics</a>, I argue that to assess these claims requires careful thought about what it really means to value civilian lives. If all civilian lives are morally equal, as international law holds, then the lives of civilians on both sides of a conflict should be treated with the same degree of respect. </p>
<h2>Why targeting civilians is wrong</h2>
<p><a href="https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v1/rule1">International humanitarian law</a>, or IHL, prohibits direct attacks on noncombatants – a category that includes civilians as well as wounded and surrendered soldiers. IHL also prohibits direct attacks on civilian objects such as schools, religious centers and hospitals and other civilian infrastructure. </p>
<p>However, because it is impossible to avoid all harm to civilians in a war zone, <a href="https://casebook.icrc.org/a_to_z/glossary/proportionality#:%7E:text=The%20principle%20of%20proportionality%20prohibits,and%20direct%20military%20advantage%20anticipated">IHL permits</a> attacks on military targets that are likely to cause harm to civilians if two conditions are met: First, the foreseeable harm to civilians must be proportionate to the military advantage sought by the attack. And second, the choice of tactics and weapons – what is referred to in IHL as the “<a href="https://casebook.icrc.org/a_to_z/glossary/proportionality#:%7E:text=The%20principle%20of%20proportionality%20prohibits,and%20direct%20military%20advantage%20anticipated">means and methods</a>” – must also aim to minimize risk to civilians, even if it means putting more soldiers in harm’s way.</p>
<p>The prohibitions on directly targeting civilians and exposing civilians to disproportionate risk of harm exist because, under IHL, civilians have <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/geneva-convention-relative-protection-civilian-persons-time-war">protected status</a> as long as they take “<a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/geneva-convention-relative-protection-civilian-persons-time-war">no active part in the hostilities</a>.” This means that, as <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/geneva-convention-relative-protection-civilian-persons-time-war">stated in the Geneva Conventions</a> – the set of <a href="https://www.icrc.org/en/doc/war-and-law/treaties-customary-law/geneva-conventions/overview-geneva-conventions.htm">international treaties</a> governing the conduct of armed conflict – all civilians must be “treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, color, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria.” </p>
<p>Directly targeting civilians or exposing them to disproportionate harm is therefore wrong for the same reasons that it is wrong to kill or harm innocent people in peacetime. People who pose no threat to others deserve respect and protection from violence regardless of their nationality or group identity. To violate that respect in war is not only a <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/sites/default/files/RS-Eng.pdf">war crime</a> but a moral crime, which is why <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/israel-gaza-hamas-what-we-know.html">Hamas’ massacre</a> of at least 1,200 Israeli citizens and the taking of 240 hostages is rightly condemned as an atrocity. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Protestors marching with placards that have photographs of individuals with 'Bring her home,' or 'Bring him home,' written at the bottom." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562270/original/file-20231128-15-ggfica.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562270/original/file-20231128-15-ggfica.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562270/original/file-20231128-15-ggfica.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562270/original/file-20231128-15-ggfica.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562270/original/file-20231128-15-ggfica.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562270/original/file-20231128-15-ggfica.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562270/original/file-20231128-15-ggfica.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Israeli protesters in Tel Aviv call for the release of the hostages held in the Gaza Strip by Hamas on Nov. 28, 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/IsraelPalestinians/ef40ba52e7064a04b7fc9b089502fb9e/photo?Query=2023%20hostage&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=1083&currentItemNo=11">AP Photo/Ariel Schalit</a></span>
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<p>How should the lives of innocent people be weighed against important military objectives? </p>
<h2>Proportionality and moral assessment</h2>
<p>The condemnation of Hamas’ crimes is based on the same moral principle as the laws that protect noncombatants in war: All innocent people deserve protection.</p>
<p>However, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3557942">scholars</a> and legal experts <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199943418.013.24">disagree</a> about how the legal framework laid out in the Geneva Conventions should be applied in war zones. </p>
<p>For example, in 1987 <a href="https://www.icrc.org/en/document/international-expert-meeting-report-principle-proportionality">the International Committee of the Red Cross</a> argued that the definition of “military advantage” – the advantage against which potential civilian harm must be weighed – should only include “ground gained” and “annihilating or weakening the enemy armed forces.” </p>
<p><a href="https://www.icrc.org/en/document/international-expert-meeting-report-principle-proportionality">But the 2016 U.S. Department of Defense Law of War Manual</a> claimed that “military advantage” should also include other goals such as “diverting enemy forces’ resources and attention.”</p>
<p>There is also disagreement about what counts as “civilian harm.” For example, scholar <a href="https://www.elac.ox.ac.uk/people/emanuela-chiara-gillard/">Emanuela-Chiara Gillard</a> <a href="https://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/publications/research/2018-12-10-proportionality-conduct-hostilities-incidental-harm-gillard-final.pdf">argues</a> that “civilian harm” should include psychological and physical harms; legal expert Dr. <a href="https://www.state.gov/biographies/beth-van-schaack/">Beth Van Schaack</a> <a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/32577/evaluating-proportionality-long-term-civilian-harm-law-war/">argues</a> that long-term harms should also be considered. </p>
<p>In short, there are no easy answers to questions about how to weigh harms against civilians against the value of military objectives. But while answers are difficult, there is a different way to frame this question: What does it mean – not just legally, but morally – to treat all civilian lives as equal, as the law requires?</p>
<p>As scholar <a href="https://philosophy.wvu.edu/faculty-and-staff/faculty-directory/matthew-talbert">Matthew Talbert</a> and I argue, the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6265-611-6_11">first step in answering</a> this question is to ask what a military force would accept if it were “their” civilians who were at risk of harm from military action. </p>
<p>That is the standard we should apply when assessing potential military actions that threaten harm to enemy civilians. We <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6265-611-6_11">call this standard</a> the “principle of the moral equality of noncombatants.” For example, Israel argued that its <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/15/middleeast/shifa-hospital-gaza-idf-intl/index.html">attack on Shifa hospital</a> was justified because, it claimed, Hamas was hiding a command base and weapons under the hospital. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/12/world/middleeast/gaza-hospitals-shifa.html">hospital, which was running low</a> on fuel, food and water, housed patients, including premature babies, and civilians seeking refuge from the conflict. <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/program/newsfeed/2023/11/26/dire-conditions-at-al-shifa-hospital-revealed-during-gaza-pause">According to footage</a> shown in <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2023/11/26/wounded-patients-left-at-al-shifa-hospital-face-dire-conditions">news reports</a>, the attack left the hospital seriously damaged, filled with debris and lacking essential supplies for the remaining patients, who include the elderly and infirm.</p>
<p>Israel has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/19/idf-israel-army-footage-claims-hamas-tunnel-al-shifa-hospital-gaza">released footage</a> supporting its claim that there was a Hamas command center under the hospital. Does that mean Israel’s attack on the hospital meets the requirements of proportionality? In other words, was the harm to civilians caused by the attack – including the <a href="https://www.icrc.org/en/document/protection-hospitals-during-armed-conflicts-what-law-says">ongoing harm</a> resulting from the loss of a major hospital – proportionate to the military value of destroying a Hamas command base? </p>
<p>In applying the principle Talbert and I proposed in our paper, the question would be phrased as follows: If Hamas was hiding a control base under an Israeli hospital and it was Israeli civilians at risk, would Israel think that attacking the hospital would be justified? If the answer is “no,” then the attack against Shifa hospital is also not justified. </p>
<p>This is because if the risk to Israeli lives outweighs the benefits of capturing a Hamas command base, then the risk to Palestinian lives should be given the same weight and lead to the same conclusion. Under IHL, all civilians are legally entitled to the same protection, regardless of their nationality. </p>
<h2>Taking civilian lives seriously</h2>
<p>Unfortunately, the debate about proportionality in the conflict between Israel and Palestine is only the latest of many debates about proportionality and civilian deaths in war zones. </p>
<p>For example, since 2001, the United States’ drone program has killed at least <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/sep/07/us-airstrikes-killed-at-least-22000-civilians-since-911-analysis-finds">22,000 civilians</a> in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Pakistan and elsewhere. A <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/12/18/us/airstrikes-pentagon-records-civilian-deaths.html">New York Times report</a> on these deaths found multiple instances of “flawed intelligence,” cover-ups and cases of mistaken identity. Despite this record, civilians deaths <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/05/18/pentagon-drone-strike-syria-civilian-al-qaeda/">still occur</a>.</p>
<p>Using the principle of the moral equality of noncombatants to assess this track record would reveal whether the U.S. military is taking sufficient care to avoid harm to civilians. If the U.S. military would not accept these deaths – and the <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/accountability-for-killing-9780199981724?cc=us&lang=en&">policies and practices</a> that contribute to them – if U.S. civilians were at risk, then these deaths are unjustified. </p>
<p>This would mean that the drone program must change in order to treat civilians in Syria, Pakistan and elsewhere with the respect to which they are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1525/nclr.2011.14.4.519">legally and morally entitled</a>. This example illustrates that to meet the standards of IHL and the <a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/35386/laws-war-nature-moral-function/">moral principles</a> that underlie those standards, military forces must apply the principle of the moral equality of noncombatants. There is no legal or moral justification, I argue, for treating some civilians lives as less important than others. </p>
<p>This is a demanding principle. Applying it would be difficult - military and political leaders would have to accept that there might be military objectives that are not important enough to justify risk to civilian lives. And it would require acknowledging that some military objectives might be so important that even harm to “their” civilians might be justified. </p>
<p>But one of the <a href="https://www.redcross.org/content/dam/redcross/atg/PDF_s/Family___Holocaust_Tracing/IHL_HumanRights.pdf">functions of IHL</a> is to “limit the suffering and damage caused by armed conflict.” This principle reflects the moral and legal status of civilians in IHL and could lead to greater respect for and protection of all civilians during conflict.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218686/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jessica Wolfendale does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Proportionality requires that lives of civilians on both sides of a conflict must be treated with the same degree of respect.Jessica Wolfendale, Professor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2162022023-10-25T04:20:34Z2023-10-25T04:20:34ZGovernments and hackers agree: the laws of war must apply in cyberspace<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555727/original/file-20231025-18-4px7lq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=90%2C54%2C5916%2C3953&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/london-united-kingdom-04-05-2022-2270339069">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>There are rules in war. International humanitarian law regulates what combatants can and can’t do, with the goal of protecting civilians and limiting suffering.</p>
<p>Most of these laws were developed during the 19th and 20th centuries. But in our own century a new kind of battlefield has emerged: the domain of cyberattacks, digital campaigns and online information operations. All these have played a heightened role in Russia’s war in Ukraine and, increasingly, in the current Israel–Hamas conflict.</p>
<p>There is a persistent myth that cyberspace is a lawless wild west. This could not be further from the truth. There is a clear international consensus that existing laws of war apply online. </p>
<p>In the past month, we have seen three significant developments in this area. Rules for “civilian hackers” have begun to gain traction. A new international humanitarian report has recommended ways forward for governments, tech companies and others. And the International Criminal Court has for the first time signalled that it considers cyber warfare to fall within its jurisdiction.</p>
<h2>Rules for hacktivists</h2>
<p>On October 4 2023, two advisers to the International Committee of the Red Cross proposed <a href="https://blogs.icrc.org/law-and-policy/2023/10/04/8-rules-civilian-hackers-war-4-obligations-states-restrain-them/">a set of rules for “civilian hackers” during war</a>. The proposals include things like “do not conduct any cyber operation against medical and humanitarian facilities” and “when planning a cyber attack against a military objective, do everything feasible to avoid or minimize the effects your operation may have on civilians”.</p>
<p>The authors were motivated by <a href="https://blogs.icrc.org/law-and-policy/2023/10/04/8-rules-civilian-hackers-war-4-obligations-states-restrain-them/">evidence of online attacks</a> disrupting banks, companies, pharmacies, hospitals, railway networks and civilian government services.</p>
<p>Cyber, digital and information operations – used alongside “real-world” military operations – have risen into the mainstream during Russia’s war in Ukraine. Many operations are carried out by civilian groups not formally connected to the military.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/russia-is-using-an-onslaught-of-cyber-attacks-to-undermine-ukraines-defence-capabilities-177638">Russia is using an onslaught of cyber attacks to undermine Ukraine's defence capabilities</a>
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<p>These manoeuvres are not spectacular. However, as <a href="https://nsc.crawford.anu.edu.au/department-news/20103/address-gchq-director-sir-jeremy-fleming">Jeremy Fleming</a> (former head of GCHQ, United Kingdom’s electronic spy agency) put it:</p>
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<p>it was never our understanding that a catastrophic cyberattack was central to Russia’s use of offensive cyber in their military doctrine. To think otherwise, misjudges how cyber has an effect in military campaigns. That’s not to say that we haven’t seen cyber in this conflict. We have – and lots of it.</p>
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<p>After the proposed rules for civilian hackers were published, something extraordinary happened.</p>
<p>Two of the largest hacktivist groups actively engaged on opposite sides of the war in Ukraine are the Russian-affiliated Killnet and the Ukrainian IT Army. Spokespeople for both groups <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-67029296">vowed to the BBC</a> they would uphold the rules.</p>
<h2>Digital threats during armed conflict</h2>
<p>It is not just actors in Ukraine, and not just hacktivist groups, who must comply with the laws of war in cyberspace. </p>
<p>On October 18, the International Committee of the Red Cross published the final report of its global advisory board on <a href="https://www.icrc.org/en/document/protecting-civilians-against-digital-threats-during-armed-conflict">digital threats during armed conflicts</a>.</p>
<p>The report is the culmination of two years of work. The board comprises a diverse group of experts spanning the geopolitical spectrum, including the United States, Russia, China, South Africa, Mexico, India and Australia (including me).</p>
<p>We worked on “the international consensus that the established principles and rules of [international humanitarian law] apply to all forms of warfare and to all kinds of weapons, be they new or old, digital or physical”.</p>
<p>To safeguard civilians against digital threats, the report includes 25 action-oriented recommendations for belligerents, states, tech companies and humanitarian organisations.</p>
<p>Since 2013, <a href="https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/753055?ln=en">negotiated agreements at the United Nations</a> have recognised that existing international law applies to what states do in cyberspace.</p>
<p>In 2021, Russia, China, the US, Australia and every country in the United Nations went one step further, <a href="https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/3934214?ln=en">explicitly recognising</a> the application of the laws of war to cyber operations.</p>
<p>The International Committee of the Red Cross – its mission being “to prevent suffering by promoting and strengthening humanitarian law and universal humanitarian principles” – has also affirmed this many times, including via the reports above.</p>
<h2>The International Criminal Court weighs in</h2>
<p>Of course, agreeing to the rules doesn’t prevent irresponsible actors from breaking them. And this is where the third significant development comes in.</p>
<p>In September 2023, Karim A.A. Khan, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, <a href="https://digitalfrontlines.io/2023/08/20/technology-will-not-exceed-our-humanity/">signalled</a> the court would begin “collecting and reviewing” evidence of cyber warfare. It will also examine “misuse of the internet to amplify hate speech and disinformation, which may facilitate or even directly lead to the occurrence of atrocities”.</p>
<p>This is the first time the International Criminal Court has expressly indicated cyber warfare and misuse of the internet fall within its jurisdiction. This puts governments, militaries, tech companies and hacktivists on notice that they do not act with impunity in cyberspace.</p>
<p>As the war drags on in Ukraine and conflict escalates between Israel and Hamas (including <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/israel-hamas-war-hackers-cyberattacks/">increasing reports</a> of hacktivism), all parties would do well to reflect that the rules of cyber warfare are clear.</p>
<p>Bombs or bytes, missiles or malware, international humanitarian law applies.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216202/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Professor Johanna Weaver was a member of the ICRC Global Advisory Board on Digital Threats During Armed conflict referred to in this article. </span></em></p>Cyberspace is a battlefield in modern conflicts – and combatants must follow international humanitarian law to protect civilians.Johanna Weaver, Director, ANU Tech Policy Design Centre, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1795462022-04-04T12:29:18Z2022-04-04T12:29:18ZHumanitarian aid workers need security, rights and better pay<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455004/original/file-20220329-3198-1g2wasz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=23%2C47%2C3970%2C2347&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">International Committee of the Red Cross workers prepare bags with bodies of government soldiers to be handed over in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine, in 2015.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Ukraine/f17e69d4466046868b1d08847bef0785/photo?Query=icrc%20workers&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=24&currentItemNo=15">AP Photo/Mstyslav Chernov</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Professional humanitarian aid workers in war-torn places like <a href="https://www.ifrc.org/press-release/ukrainian-red-cross-volunteers-provide-life-saving-aid-people-need">Ukraine</a>, <a href="https://pulitzercenter.org/stories/finish-them-aid-workers-found-battlefield-executed-soldiers">Ethiopia</a>, <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(22)00474-3/fulltext">Syria</a> and <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/03/04/surge-attacks-aid-workers-south-sudan">South Sudan</a> do some of the most dangerous jobs in the world.</p>
<p>You might imagine them as people who parachute into battlefields or places wrecked by disasters. However, the <a href="https://www.alnap.org/our-topics/the-state-of-the-humanitarian-system">vast majority</a> are local residents of countries and communities in crisis. </p>
<p>For the last 15 years, I have been conducting <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=a8iDmUwAAAAJ&hl=en">ethnographic research</a> in several Ethiopian communities experiencing conflicts and other crises, including hundreds of detailed interviews and observations. As I explain in my <a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501759666/love-and-liberation/">recently published book</a> on the politics and inequities of global humanitarian work, local aid workers around the world face two major challenges. </p>
<p>First, they are not just accidental casualties in conflicts. Instead, local aid workers are increasingly the <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/world/aid-worker-security-report-figures-glance-2021">strategic targets of attack</a> for military forces. Second, despite the dangers inherent in their jobs – and compared with their international or expatriate colleagues working in cities and headquarters offices far from where crises unfold – they earn less money, have less job security and have <a href="https://ruralhuman.com/how-the-aid-sector-fails-the-local-aid-workers/">far fewer benefits</a> such as life insurance.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454803/original/file-20220328-17-117f7jg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Men in International Committee of the Red Cross vests speak with locals in a Syrian village." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454803/original/file-20220328-17-117f7jg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454803/original/file-20220328-17-117f7jg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454803/original/file-20220328-17-117f7jg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454803/original/file-20220328-17-117f7jg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454803/original/file-20220328-17-117f7jg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454803/original/file-20220328-17-117f7jg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454803/original/file-20220328-17-117f7jg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">ICRC staff help deliver aid in Syria in 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/staff-from-the-international-committee-of-the-red-cross-news-photo/925973512?adppopup=true">Ahmad Shafie Bilal/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Aid work can be deadly</h2>
<p>Almost 95% of the attacks on aid workers from 2010 to 2019 were on <a href="https://www.humanitarianoutcomes.org/AWSR2020">local or national staff</a>. Only three of the total 129 aid workers who died on the job in 2021 were stationed in foreign countries. The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/17/world/africa/ethiopia-tigray-aid-workers-killed.html">rest were locals</a>. The numbers of aid workers hurt or killed on duty continues to rise every year.</p>
<p>Ethiopia was the world’s deadliest country for aid workers in 2021. According to the <a href="https://aidworkersecurity.org/">Aid Worker Security Database</a>, which tracks these deaths, at least <a href="https://aidworkersecurity.org/incidents/search?start=2021&detail=1&country=AF%2CCD%2CET%2CIQ%2CNG%2CSO%2CSD%2CSY&sort=asc&order=Country">19 aid workers from that country died in 2021</a>. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/17/world/africa/ethiopia-tigray-aid-workers-killed.html?searchResultPosition=2">The New York Times reported</a> in March 2022 that three aid workers with <a href="https://www.msf.org/ethiopia-msf-seeks-answers-government-after-new-media-report-killing-its-staff">Doctors Without Borders</a>, two who were Ethiopian and one who was Spanish, were <a href="https://pulitzercenter.org/stories/finish-them-aid-workers-found-battlefield-executed-soldiers">attacked and killed</a> by Ethiopian soldiers on June 24, 2021. The Ethiopian government subsequently called the account “<a href="https://addisstandard.com/news-ethiopia-denounces-new-york-times-report-on-death-of-msf-staff-members-in-tigray/">baseless</a>.”</p>
<p>One reason why local relief workers face so much danger is that targeting aid workers has become a key part of war strategies in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/17/world/africa/ethiopia-tigray-aid-workers-killed.html">Ethiopia</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(17)30741-9">Syria</a> and <a href="https://abc7chicago.com/ukraine-mariupol-rescue-workers-russian-demand/11674521/">now</a> also in <a href="https://www.who.int/news/item/13-03-2022-stop-attacks-on-health-care-in-ukraine">Ukraine</a>. </p>
<p>Attacks on people who provide assistance does not simply endanger the aid workers. It can terrorize and kill much larger numbers of people. <a href="https://www.who.int/news/item/13-03-2022-stop-attacks-on-health-care-in-ukraine">Attacks on health care providers</a>, for example, can rob thousands of patients of their life-saving medical care. <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/international/599329-ukraine-russia-seized-rescue-workers-trying-to-deliver-food-to-mariupol/">Attacks on aid workers distributing food and water</a> imperils thousands more. </p>
<h2>The role of international law</h2>
<p>Targeting aid workers violates <a href="https://www.icrc.org/en/war-and-law">International Humanitarian Law</a>, a body of laws that govern the conduct of war.</p>
<p>After World War II, most countries, including Russia, Ethiopia, Syria and the United States, ratified the <a href="https://www.icrc.org/en/war-and-law/treaties-customary-law/geneva-conventions">Geneva Conventions</a>. These laws outline the responsibilities national governments have to protect the lives and dignity of both combatants and civilians during conflict. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.icrc.org/en/who-we-are/mandate">International Committee of the Red Cross</a>, a global nongovernmental organization that drafted the Geneva Conventions, is tasked with defining and executing these laws, as well as providing additional forms of humanitarian assistance. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/applic/ihl/ihl.nsf/INTRO/470">Additional Protocol I</a>, added to the Geneva Conventions in 1977, spells out specific responsibilities governments have to protect aid workers.</p>
<p>However, these international laws lack effective enforcement mechanisms. Without clear consequences or meaningful deterrence, I expect attacks on aid workers to continue to harm and kill humanitarian workers.</p>
<h2>Equity and workers’ rights</h2>
<p>Aid workers are <a href="https://revealnews.org/podcast/a-racial-reckoning-at-doctors-without-borders-2022/">beginning to demand changes</a>, such as stronger job security, more legal recourse in labor cases that involve exploitation, injury or abuse, and more equitable compensation in light of the risks inherent in their profession.</p>
<p>Organizing and demanding these changes is a challenge, however. Humanitarian organizations are both geographically dispersed and diverse, with different types of employers such as nongovernmental, governmental and United Nations organizations all over the world.</p>
<p>Even so, aid agencies like Doctors without Borders, Oxfam and others are calling for more meaningful reforms. They are embracing the “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1542316620922805">localization</a>” of aid – <a href="https://www.alnap.org/help-library/localisation-of-humanitarian-action">or making greater investments in locally led humanitarian action</a>. Calls to “<a href="https://www.peacedirect.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/PD-Decolonising-Aid-Report.pdf">decolonize</a>” aid by dismantling racist and discriminatory structures and norms rooted in colonialism and imperialism are also growing.</p>
<p>However, my research suggests that these reforms require additional attention to the way aid workers – especially local and national staff – are targeted in contemporary conflicts. Local aid workers also need stronger security, more consistent rights, and better and more equitable compensation and benefits across different countries and organizations.</p>
<h2>Unprotected and undervalued</h2>
<p>One afternoon in the Ethiopian city of Jigjiga, in August 2018, I interviewed the head of emergency programs at a U.N. relief agency’s local office. He was a <a href="https://www.refworld.org/docid/469f3888b.html">Somali-Ethiopian</a> man I call Farah to maintain his anonymity.</p>
<p><a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/ethiopia/ethiopia-somali-region-inter-communal-conflict-flash-update-number-1-17-august-2018">Recent conflicts</a> had resulted in several attacks on convoys delivering food and teams of health workers. </p>
<p>When we met, Farah was frustrated. He had just been demoted and stripped of his leadership role despite his success managing teams of mobile health workers and a growing portfolio of emergency health programs. Vaccination rates had increased and rates of malnutrition had declined on his watch – even in communities beset by conflict, droughts, displacement and distrust in governmental authorities.</p>
<p>[<em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-youresmart">You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>The U.N. had brought in an “international expert,” Farah said, to take his place. “The new guy had to learn everything, internally and externally, like the culture, the history, etc.” </p>
<p>“You have to introduce the new person to all the external partners,” he said, before taking out his cellphone and scrolling through hundreds of contacts. They ranged from local politicians to health workers to religious leaders in drought-hit villages hundreds of miles away.</p>
<p>“It’s your relationships with all these different people that is so important,” he continued. “You have to be able to react and help correct the new coordinator when they don’t understand something.” As my book details, Farah’s <a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501759666/love-and-liberation/">leadership, networks and experience</a> had been key, so far, to keeping his teams safe. </p>
<p>Like Farah, local aid workers in Ethiopia are essential to making international relief operations work and to managing the risks aid work entails. But at the same time, Farah and others like him continue to <a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501759666/love-and-liberation/">lack job security as well as equitable compensation and adequate security</a>. He was valued for his localness and his knowledge of Somalis, but not his additional transferable skills in leadership and diplomacy, as well as personnel, logistics and risk management. Farah’s contract ended the week after we met. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454802/original/file-20220328-13-1hkzzdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Workers unload sacks of wheat in an African village" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454802/original/file-20220328-13-1hkzzdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454802/original/file-20220328-13-1hkzzdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454802/original/file-20220328-13-1hkzzdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454802/original/file-20220328-13-1hkzzdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454802/original/file-20220328-13-1hkzzdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454802/original/file-20220328-13-1hkzzdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454802/original/file-20220328-13-1hkzzdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Workers unload sacks of wheat for a food distribution for people who fled the violence in Ethiopia’s Tigray region in June 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/workers-unload-sacks-of-wheat-for-a-food-distribution-for-news-photo/1233593602">Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Most international humanitarian organizations like Doctors Without Borders and UNICEF have already agreed to uphold a <a href="https://spherestandards.org/about/">set of professional standards</a> for relief operations, such as how much water and food per person must be provided daily. Based on my research, I believe that standards for safety, security, monetary compensation and benefits for staff are necessary as well, and that these standards could be developed in a similar way.</p>
<p>Aid workers like Farah, and so many thousands of others who put their lives on the line every day, deserve better.</p>
<p><em>This article was updated on April 6, 2022, to correct details on the three Doctors Without Borders aid workers who were killed in Ethiopia.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/179546/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lauren Carruth receives funding for her research from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. </span></em></p>Nearly all of the 129 aid workers killed on the job in 2021 were from the countries where they lost their lives.Lauren Carruth, Associate Professor of International Service, American University School of International ServiceLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1155932019-04-23T03:50:18Z2019-04-23T03:50:18ZRift between NZ government and aid agency over naming of nurse captured by ISIS<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270310/original/file-20190422-28116-1ohd4oj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=53%2C157%2C2941%2C1571&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The ICRC may have decided to release the name of a New Zealand nurse captured in Syria because ISIS has been defeated in its strongholds.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ahmed Mardnli/EPA</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Last week’s revelation that a <a href="https://interactives.stuff.co.nz/2019/the-secret-hostage/">New Zealand nurse has been captured by Islamic State</a> and detained in Syria for almost six years has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/16/jacinda-ardern-and-red-cross-lock-horns-over-publication-of-nurses-kidnap-in-syria">caused tensions for the New Zealand government</a>.</p>
<p>Louisa Akavi was working for the International Committee of the Red Cross (<a href="https://www.icrc.org/en">ICRC</a>), known as Red Crescent in the Middle East, when she was captured in 2013. When the ICRC <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/14/world/middleeast/isis-aid-worker.html">revealed her name</a> last week, New Zealand PM <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/15/world/asia/louisa-akavi-nurse-isis-new-zealand.html">Jacinda Ardern didn’t welcome the move</a>.</p>
<p>The government and New Zealand media had <a href="https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/mediawatch/audio/2018691450/sitting-on-a-sensational-story-for-safety-s-sake">kept the story secret</a> in a bid to improve her chances of surviving.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-rout-of-isis-gives-the-world-an-opportunity-to-defeat-its-ideology-114807">The rout of ISIS gives the world an opportunity to defeat its ideology</a>
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<h2>A selfless aid worker</h2>
<p>Louisa Akavi is an <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/112102853/nz-syria-reporter-emma-beals-says-hope-for-louisa-akavi-must-never-wane">exemplar of humanity</a>. The New Zealander of Cook Island descent is a highly specialised nurse who has offered her skills to those in need, wherever they are. She has conducted 17 missions for the ICRC since the mid-1990s. </p>
<p>If there was a high-risk war zone in the last 30 years, odds are she had been in it. The ICRC – neutral, practical, discreet and focused on relieving human suffering irrespective of where it was found – had Akavi working for them in northern Syria. She was captured there while travelling in a medical convoy in October 2013, a little over a month after arriving. If she is still alive, she will have been in <a href="https://interactives.stuff.co.nz/2019/the-secret-hostage/">captivity longer than any other ICRC worker</a> in the aid organisation’s 156-year history.</p>
<p>Exactly who captured Akavi is uncertain. Hostages, local and especially foreign, were taken and traded among groups in a thriving illegal market for reasons of both economic return via sale to others, ransom to foreign governments or propaganda value. </p>
<h2>High point of risk</h2>
<p>If there was a point when Avaki’s life would have hung by a thread, it would have been in late February 2015 when <a href="https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/266949/iraq-deployment-condemned">Sir John Key’s National government decided to join the conflict against Islamic State</a> and <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/67756596/null">help train Iraqi forces</a>. Few matters could have weighed more heavily on the mind of the government than the risk of Akavi facing a fate similar to that of many other Western hostages, who paid the price for New Zealand’s intervention in that war.</p>
<p>But there have been several sightings of Akavi since then. That she appears to have survived suggests other considerations might have been at play. </p>
<p>The most obvious is that Akavi was not partisan in the conflict. She was a mature woman, working for the ICRC, and she had medical skills that may have been useful to her captors. </p>
<p>The problem with this assumption is that Islamic State, like the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-afghanistan-taliban-aid/afghan-taliban-bans-who-and-red-cross-work-amid-vaccination-drive-idUSKCN1RN257">Taliban</a> and <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/10/16/boko-haram-kills-red-cross-staff-member-nigeria-kidnapping-three/">Boko Haram</a>, does not believe it is bound by any of the norms that govern international humanitarian law, including the sacrosanct nature of medics and the ICRC in combat zones. </p>
<p>How valuable Akavi was as a medic would have been entirely dependent on how many others with similar skills also existed within ISIS-held areas.</p>
<h2>Ransoming hostages</h2>
<p>The second reason Akavi may have survived is because she might have had some <a href="https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12222398">economic value via ransom</a>. ISIS knew that many Western governments, fearful of the short-term consequences of seeing the public death of one of their citizens, paid ransom demands to get their people home. </p>
<p>But the New Zealand government, like many other Western governments, has a clear policy of <a href="https://www.un.org/sc/ctc/news/document/sres2133-2014-prevention-of-kidnapping-and-hostage-taking-committed-by-terrorist-groups/">not paying for hostages</a>.</p>
<p>The reason this rule exists in international policy is because if such payments are made citizens of that country will be targeted even more in the long term due to expectation of reward. The same thinking applies to the ICRC, which also will not pay for any of its staff who are held hostage. They too know if the ICRC started down this road the number of its <a href="https://www.chathamhouse.org/expert/comment/ransoms-should-governments-ever-pay">members being kidnapped would quickly multiply</a>. </p>
<h2>Keeping the story secret</h2>
<p>The third reason Akavi may have survived her captivity is that until earlier this week the ICRC, the New Zealand government and the media have all kept her out of the headlines. This invisibility meant Islamic State was not provoked into any hasty actions. </p>
<p>The invisibility of Akavi dissolved when the ICRC – not the New Zealand government – broke the silence. With the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/14/kurdish-led-fighters-take-last-isis-town-in-syria-activists-say">defeat of ISIS on the battlefield</a>, The ICRC believed the time was right to appeal for help in finding her, or, if she was still being held, for her (and other ICRC captives) to be released. </p>
<p>For an organisation that prides itself on working behind the scenes and only going public when there is no alternative, this was an unexpected step. It might have been helped by the fact that Akavi did not appear in an ISIS propaganda video following the Christchurch terror attack.</p>
<p>The ICRC’s hope is that Akavi will emerge from the fog of war that still envelopes much of the region, and that she will surface from among the millions of displaced people in and around the region. The fear of the New Zealand government is that although <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/112102853/nz-syria-reporter-emma-beals-says-hope-for-louisa-akavi-must-never-wane">ISIS may have been defeated in their strongholds</a>, parts of the organisation remain intact and it might be holding Akavi, along with others, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/05/british-isis-hostage-john-cantlie-still-alive-uk-government-says">as one of its last bargaining chips</a>. If this is correct, the New Zealand government is about to get drawn into some very difficult deliberations. </p>
<p>The final possibility is that we may never know what happened to Louisa Akavi. She, along with tens of thousands of others, may have simply disappeared in one of the worst conflicts of the 21st century. Held by a murderous regime which was pounded incessantly, this person, whose only crime was to seek to relieve human suffering, may have paid the ultimate price because she cared about others.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/115593/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexander Gillespie receives funding from the New Zealand Law Foundation</span></em></p>The Red Cross has released the name of a New Zealand nurse captured by ISIS in Syria more than five years ago in an appeal for help in finding her. But the move has caused a rift with the government.Alexander Gillespie, Professor of Law, University of WaikatoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/806852017-07-17T14:47:21Z2017-07-17T14:47:21ZTragedy in the Nuba Mountains: hunger and starvation are constants<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177739/original/file-20170711-14431-1jwjdxi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A brother and sister take shelter from aerial attacks in the rebel-held territory of the Nuba Mountains in South Kordofan.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Goran Tomasevic </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Ever since the war between the <a href="http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?mot147">Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North</a> and the government of Sudan broke out in June 2011, the government has carried out almost daily <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/07/sudanese-beauty-queen-natalina-yaqoub-demands-end-nuba-mountain-bombing">aerial attacks</a> against civilians living in the <a href="https://www.pri.org/collections/nuba-mountains">Nuba Mountains</a>. When not killed, the people suffer horrific injuries, including sheared limbs and inner organs ground to mush.</p>
<p>The liberation movement is demanding self-determination and power-sharing for the Nuba people. The Nuba have lived in the area for thousands of years, and fought with the South during the <a href="https://sites.tufts.edu/atrocityendings/2015/08/07/sudan-2nd-civil-war-darfur/">Second Civil War (1983-2005)</a>. But, they were prevented from seceding with the rest of the South from Sudan. When the Nuba people continued to be threatened by Khartoum, they picked up weapons and formed the SPLM-N. </p>
<p>Nuba farms and stores of food are often destroyed by the aerial attacks and people are fearful of working their farms. Hunger lingers. Many are suffering from malnutrition to severe malnutrition and are dying from <a href="https://africasustainableconservation.com/2014/12/07/sudans-war-of-starvation-in-the-nuba-mountains/">starvation</a>. In places like Kao Nyaro, severe malnutrition and starvation have been a constant. </p>
<p>Despite the critical need for food, none of the organisations involved in helping people in dire need have attempted to deliver aid to the Nuba. This includes UNHCR, the World Food Program, CARE, Mercy Corps, the International Red Cross and Oxfam.</p>
<p>Because of the lack of international assistance, informal channels have <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Genocide-Attrition-Nuba-Mountains-Sudan/dp/1412847508">picked up the slack</a>. I know of four different groups who have been trucking food up since early 2012. Personally, I have made five trips up to the Nuba Mountains during the period of the war to take in as many tons of food as possible. Most of us travel through the territory controlled by the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North. </p>
<p>These efforts have resulted in the delivery of hundreds of tons of food and a wide array of medicines and medical devices. All of this has been accomplished by travelling over dusty, rutted roads and in the face of the daily aerial attacks by the Sudanese government. Still, the Nuba continue to suffer from the entire gamut of hunger.</p>
<p>Exactly why international organisations and individual states have not stepped up to help the Nuba remains unclear. But various reasons have been floated by those involved in the informal efforts. The main reason could be the international community’s efforts not to irritate Sudanese President Omar al Bashir, as well as fears that the fight against terrorist groups in the region could be compromised.</p>
<h2>World silent amid starvation and slaughter</h2>
<p>The biggest fear is that al-Bashir could easily decide to return to war if he believes that Sudan is being toyed with by the international community. </p>
<p>Under the <a href="http://www.un.org/press/en/2005/sc8306.doc.htm">Comprehensive Peace Agreement</a>, which was signed following the Second Sudanese War, al-Bashir agreed to allow the people of the south to vote in a referendum on independence. People resoundingly voted to secede from Sudan, and to establish the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/poverty-matters/2011/jul/08/south-sudan-independence-history">Republic of South Sudan</a>. If the international community, in al-Bashir’s eyes, brazenly enters Sudan without Khartoum’s permission, thus trumping its sovereignty, al-Bashir could do everything in his power to attempt to reclaim the land which was ripped from Sudan. </p>
<p>There are other potential reasons too. Among them are:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>The international community has been wont to accommodate Khartoum on the grounds that it’s not controlled by terrorist organisations such as Al-Qaeda, ISIS, Al-Shabaab.</p></li>
<li><p>The US government has been engaged in a quid pro quo with Sudan: if Sudan allows the US to operate its war against terrorism on its territory – including small drone bases in the country – Washington will go easy on the country. Former President Barack Obama’s <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/obama-administration-to-lift-some-sanctions-against-sudan/2017/01/12/4a312de0-d91e-11e6-b8b2-cb5164beba6b_story.html?utm_term=.fee4f0563501">decision</a> to lift some sanctions against Khartoum might constitute evidence of this.</p></li>
<li><p>Humanitarian groups may assume that they need military escorts to get food to the Nuba Mountains but have not been sure whether the international community would step up to the plate.</p></li>
<li><p>Air drops aren’t feasible because the Sudanese government controls the skies of South Kordofan and Blue Nile States with Sukhoi supersonic all-weather attack aircraft.</p></li>
<li><p>Diplomats believe (or want to believe) that six years into the Nuba crisis negotiations would eventually result in a breakthrough.</p></li>
<li><p>Compassion fatigue has set in given that aid organisations have their hands full dealing with other major crises. </p></li>
</ul>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177740/original/file-20170711-14428-wyfutm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177740/original/file-20170711-14428-wyfutm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177740/original/file-20170711-14428-wyfutm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177740/original/file-20170711-14428-wyfutm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177740/original/file-20170711-14428-wyfutm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177740/original/file-20170711-14428-wyfutm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177740/original/file-20170711-14428-wyfutm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Children flee with their family’s belongings to Yida refugee camp in South Sudan to escape aerial bombardment of their Nuba Mountains homes in South Kordofan. .</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Goran Tomasevic</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Still, the situation remains puzzling. A host of international aid groups are actively providing aid to countless numbers of people in at least a dozen crisis areas that are equally, if not more dangerous. Oxfam and CARE, for example, work in The Republic of South Sudan where a treacherous war rages. The two organisations, together with Mercy Corps and the International Red Cross, are also active in Syria.</p>
<p>Four organisations – Oxfam, CARE, Mercy Corps, the International Red Cross – are also active in <a href="http://www.givespot.com/ask/afghanistan.htm">Afghanistan</a> and the <a href="http://dlca.logcluster.org/display/public/DLCA/4.2+Democratic+Republic+of+Congo+Humanitarian+Agency+Contact+List;jsessionid=980686D4CE9CC7FB1D34621AD90B4173">Democratic Republic of the Congo</a>. All, except Oxfam, are also working in Somalia and Yemen.</p>
<h2>Where to from here?</h2>
<p>The US has broached the idea to the SPLA and Khartoum about allowing food to be flown from Khartoum to the Nuba Mountains. The Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N), however, demands that 20% be delivered <a href="https://nubareports.org/sudan-insider-all-talk-no-humanitarian-action/">through Ethiopia</a>, thus allowing them to control the delivery. The SPLM-N not only fear Khartoum may poison the food, but also said it wants to be sure at least some of the food gets to the region, citing Khartoum’s manipulation of aid deliveries to Darfur, where Khartoum persistently <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/relief-and-politics-seeking-aid-access-in-sudans_us_589c8287e4b02bbb1816c385">refused access to the region</a>.</p>
<p>For now, though, both groups, the SPLM-N and Khartoum, are at a stand-off. For the sake of the health and lives of Nuba civilians, the stand-off needs to be solved sooner than later.</p>
<p><em>Samuel Totten, a scholar of genocide studies, has made five trips to the Nuba Mountains. His latest book is: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Sudans-Mountains-People-Under-Siege/dp/1476667225">Sudan’s Nuba Mountains People Under Siege: Accounts by Humanitarians in the Battle Zone</a></em>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/80685/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Samuel Totten does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The world has turned its back on the Nuba people of Sudan. Despite the critical need for food, none of the organisations involved in helping people in dire need have attempted to deliver aid to them.Samuel Totten, Professor Emeritus, University of ArkansasLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/757512017-04-06T13:23:50Z2017-04-06T13:23:50ZWhy it’s important that the world still reflects on Rwanda’s genocide<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164160/original/image-20170405-14591-163w230.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Stephen Morrison</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>23 years ago, <a href="https://theconversation.com/rwanda-how-to-deal-with-a-million-genocide-suspects-38642">genocide was unleashed</a> in Rwanda. Almost a million Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed in about 100 days.</p>
<p>Consider not just the scale of the violence but the intimate means by which some 10,000 people a day lost their lives. Men, women, and children were killed at close proximity – often butchered with machetes, knives, scythes, clubs, picks, and sharpened sticks. </p>
<p>Their killers were not only members of the Rwandan army and the government-backed <em>Interahamwe</em> and <em>Impuzamugambi</em>, the <a href="https://global.britannica.com/event/Rwanda-genocide-of-1994#ref1111308">Hutu militias</a>. They were also the victims’ own neighbours, those they had sat next to at school, played soccer with, worked alongside. Many were tortured and raped before they were killed.</p>
<p>Instinctively, we recoil from such horror. Yet, in 2003, the United Nations General Assembly designated April 7 the “International Day of Reflection on the <a href="http://repository.un.org/handle/11176/246860">Genocide in Rwanda”</a>.</p>
<p>Why should we stop to reflect on such inhumanity and brutality, an episode that evokes shame, despair, and revulsion, now decades behind us, when current global problems abound and hope already often seems in short supply? </p>
<p>Looking back as a means of trying to gain perspective on today’s complex crises might seem naive. One might even argue that the Rwandan genocide was an aberration, a temporary slip into collective insanity, a result of some unique confluence of circumstances, still unfathomable. </p>
<p>Yet, the events of 1994 do warrant reflection today. They serve to remind us of two things: the culpability that can accompany simply looking the other way; and the risks, including <em>to ourselves,</em> of building walls (both real and metaphorical) between ‘us’ and ‘them’. </p>
<h2>Acknowledging responsibility for inaction</h2>
<p>The Rwandan genocide is not only a litany of unimaginable acts and intimate violence. It’s simultaneously a story of unimaginable omissions and the distanced <em>“allowing”</em> of such violence. Inhumanity was not only revealed in the horrifyingly callous manner in which the machetes were wielded but in carefully calculated denial, in silence and inaction, in dithering and stalled deliberation.</p>
<p>Blame shouldn’t be apportioned only to those who carried out or choreographed the killings. Other actors are also to blame, including institutional agents.</p>
<p>The multiple failures of the UN to prevent or mitigate the genocide in Rwanda are acknowledged in its <a href="http://www.securitycouncilreport.org/atf/cf/%7B65BFCF9B-6D27-4E9C-8CD3-CF6E4FF96FF9%7D/POC%20S19991257.pdf">1999 report</a> which followed an independent inquiry. Inaction when the UN had a capacity to act, and could have averted great harm, is inexcusable.</p>
<p>Of course, the member states of the UN were also blameworthy for their own discrete failures. The US, for example, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/mar/31/usa.rwanda">stubbornly skirted around the one label</a> that was rapidly revealed to be appropriate: <em>genocide,</em> a label that highlights an intention to eliminate, in whole or part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. </p>
<p>Its utterance would have indicated recognition by the US – a signatory to the <a href="https://treaties.un.org/doc/publication/unts/volume%2078/volume-78-i-1021-english.pdf">1948 Genocide Convention</a> – of its obligation to act. So, the word was avoided, and the US’s obligation to act with it. Yet, it was clear that the world was witnessing genocide. </p>
<p>The killings were meticulously planned and orchestrated by those in power. They were executed with brutal efficiency. Weapons had been stockpiled; lists of targets had been compiled and were distributed to local groups. The <a href="http://www.crimesofwar.org/a-z-guide/rwanda-refugees-and-genocidaires/"><em>genocidaires</em></a> (those involved in the genocide) were infamously urged on by <a href="https://www.concordia.ca/research/migs/resources/rwanda-radio-transcripts.html">regime-sponsored radio broadcasts</a> that, at first, ushered in the genocide with hate propaganda against the Tutsis and then identified who and where the Tutsis were, and provided instructions on how to kill them. By the time the killing came to a halt in July, three out of every four ethnic Tutsis were dead.</p>
<h2>One step forward</h2>
<p>Within Rwanda, a slow and painful <a href="http://www.un.org/en/preventgenocide/rwanda/about/bgjustice.shtml">process of reconciliation</a> followed. The international community offered expressions of remorse – and even apology. US President Bill Clinton, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_6CFNwJ9ww">speaking in Rwanda in 1998</a>, acknowledged that</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[t]he international community… must bear its share of responsibility for this tragedy. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>On the tenth anniversary of the genocide, former Secretary-General <a href="https://www.un.org/press/en/2004/sgsm9223.doc.htm">Kofi Annan lamented</a> that</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[i]f the international community had acted promptly and with determination, it could have stopped most of the killing.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>He led the call to define a clear set of prospective responsibilities so that the UN would never again stand idly by as blatant and preventable mass atrocities were carried out.</p>
<p>At the 2005 World Summit, all member states signed up to the groundbreaking, if imperfect, <a href="https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N05/487/60/PDF/N0548760.pdf?OpenElemen">“responsibility to protect” </a>vulnerable populations from mass atrocity. Post-Rwanda the world seemed united in its rallying cry of “never again”.</p>
<h2>A world of diluted international obligations?</h2>
<p>Yet, in an increasingly inward-looking world of <a href="https://theconversation.com/article-50-triggered-but-is-a-brexit-deal-really-possible-in-two-years-74435">Brexit </a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/america-first-donald-trump-becomes-the-45th-president-of-the-united-states-70479">Donald Trump</a>, fear and myopia threaten to obscure even the formally acknowledged international obligations that the experience of Rwanda supposedly bolstered. </p>
<p>International obligations – to refugees, to those threatened with mass atrocity crimes – seem weakened. The relevance of intergovernmental organisations and supranational bodies has been questioned amid populist proclamations of <a href="https://theconversation.com/trumps-america-first-pledge-has-echoes-of-rhodesias-racist-white-nationalists-71815">“my country first”</a>. Cosmopolitan sentiments appear diminished when confronted with often xenophobic distinctions between fellow citizens and “foreigners”.</p>
<p>One of the many things that the 1994 genocide can teach us is how easily fear can be fostered, how effectively divisions can be constructed and manipulated, how quickly ties that we take for granted can unravel – and how our individual and collective security is sacrificed as a result.</p>
<p>If we don’t learn this lesson, I worry that we are poised to take two steps back. </p>
<p>As shameful as the strategic avoidance of the word “genocide” was in 1994, there was some solace in the weight that it was understood to carry. Denial that the violence in Rwanda constituted genocide was, in fact, recognition of the strength of the principle that genuine cases must be acted on. </p>
<p>Today, I am wary of a time when there might be no hesitation to name genocide simply because the expectation to respond has become so thoroughly eroded, and our international responsibilities (as corollaries to human rights) so meaningless, that nothing hangs on inaction. </p>
<p>How to avoid that possible future is worthy of serious reflection.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/75751/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Toni Erskine does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The 1994 Rwandan genocide evokes shame, despair, and revulsion.Yet, the events warrant reflection and remind us about the risks of looking the other way.Toni Erskine, Professor of International Politics, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/682752017-01-05T13:14:22Z2017-01-05T13:14:22ZWe made a lightweight trauma pack to save and change lives on rural African roads<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/147550/original/image-20161125-32035-8y3ud4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">These packs have already been deployed to villages in Zambia</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s a common misconception that design is about aesthetics; it’s a great deal more involved than that. Sometimes good design can mean the difference between poverty and prosperity, or even life and death.</p>
<p>For the past few years, we have been investigating how we could help alleviate the effects of road traffic injuries in Zambia. Collaborating with Judith Hall, an anaesthesiologist at Cardiff University, who initiated the project, our aim was to develop lifesaving equipment using a <a href="http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/news/view/500871-trauma-pack-to-save-countless-lives">multi-disciplinary approach</a>. We provided the design and ethnographic expertise and Hall gave her medical knowledge on what we needed.</p>
<p>Road traffic injuries (RTIs) are one of the <a href="http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs358/en/">leading causes of death</a> among young people in Zambia. Some 70% of those who die in road accidents are the <a href="http://zambianroadsafety.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/strategic_plan_web.pdf">“breadwinners” in their household</a>, which has resulted in RTIs becoming a major contributor to spiralling poverty in the region. In total, RTIs cost developing countries between <a href="http://zambianroadsafety.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/strategic_plan_web.pdf">1% and 5% of GDP</a> so although these incidents may feel like personal matters, they have huge social ramifications.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/147559/original/image-20161125-32046-xrydaq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/147559/original/image-20161125-32046-xrydaq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147559/original/image-20161125-32046-xrydaq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147559/original/image-20161125-32046-xrydaq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147559/original/image-20161125-32046-xrydaq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147559/original/image-20161125-32046-xrydaq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147559/original/image-20161125-32046-xrydaq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The packs are intuitively designed and require no training to use.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Proper treatment in the immediate aftermath of an RTI makes a major difference between whether a victim lives or dies. Should they survive, it decreases the chances of major, lifelong disabilities, the consequences of which have very serious implications for the future of their dependants. Unfortunately, developing nations cannot normally afford medically trained personnel, nor the trauma equipment needed – a standard trauma pack can cost around £600 (around US$750). </p>
<p>It was with this in mind that we began to develop a pack specifically for this context. The resulting kit, which includes a neck brace, splints and bandages, can be used to stabilise RTI victims before they can receive proper medical attention. Each item is designed to prevent non-qualified first responders doing more harm than good. The neck brace, for example, has no access hole for a tracheotomy to be performed. </p>
<p>The pack and each item it contains is made from locally available materials using processes that are viable locally. The neck braces, for example, are formed from hand-waxed and sealed cardboard, while drainpipes are used as the basis for splints, and bicycle inner tubes for pressure bandages. It can be stored for long periods of time in village leaders’ houses along major roads and will not degrade in rainy conditions. As the majority of the RTI first responders in Zambia are illiterate and untrained, the pack is made up of intuitive, life-saving equipment with easy-to-understand instructions that walk users through the globally-standard <a href="https://www.resus.org.uk/resuscitation-guidelines/abcde-approach/">ABCDE sequence of care</a>.</p>
<p>The trauma pack concept was also conceived as an enterprise development opportunity for manufacture and deployment in Zambia, using cheap, accessible, local materials and low-tech manufacturing processes. And the design – which was developed with the active involvement of 105 people from all walks of life in Zambia, and 25 medical experts in Britain – costs around 95% less than those available in the UK.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/147561/original/image-20161125-32054-1be5lyb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/147561/original/image-20161125-32054-1be5lyb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=243&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147561/original/image-20161125-32054-1be5lyb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=243&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147561/original/image-20161125-32054-1be5lyb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=243&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147561/original/image-20161125-32054-1be5lyb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=305&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147561/original/image-20161125-32054-1be5lyb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=305&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147561/original/image-20161125-32054-1be5lyb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=305&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A sample neck brace from the pack.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We are now looking to run a pilot project in Zambia, and trial the trauma pack along a section of the Great Eastern Road, a major highway. From there we want to build the necessary links and knowledge, and get approval for the construction of a sustainable infrastructure to produce and deploy the packs.</p>
<h2>Global help</h2>
<p>Though our team’s work will hopefully have a great effect on the treatment of RTI victims in Sub-Saharan Africa, use of the pack is not limited to this situation. We have started looking at how some of the concepts can be used outside the developing world, and have consulted experts in the British National Health Service, Red Cross, Welsh Ambulance Service and the UK’s Ministry of Defence to create a new, patent-pending design to be manufactured in the UK and sold in Europe and beyond. We are in the process of signing a licensing agreement with a manufacturer, and the first of these Zambia pack spin-offs is aimed at meeting the needs of the International Committee of the Red Cross.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/147560/original/image-20161125-32026-d3posv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/147560/original/image-20161125-32026-d3posv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147560/original/image-20161125-32026-d3posv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147560/original/image-20161125-32026-d3posv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147560/original/image-20161125-32026-d3posv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147560/original/image-20161125-32026-d3posv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147560/original/image-20161125-32026-d3posv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Red Cross pack is specifically designed for single use in times of humanitarian crisis.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Red Cross Pack is very light, very cheap and compact. Like the Zambia Pack, it is designed to allow people with minimal training to treat the most common traumas. Though it was inspired by the Zambia Pack, the design is entirely different: it is a single-use, single-patient kit for deployment in large-scale humanitarian emergencies such as earthquakes. </p>
<p>Each of these packs is suitable for adults of all sizes and contains a low-cost three-in-one size neck brace (patent pending) and a six-in-one size arm and leg splint kit (patent pending). Both the neck brace and splints are made from corrugated plastic, and the whole kit is contained in a light-weight cardboard box with clear infographic directions.</p>
<p>We also have a series of other project ideas for the developing world. Plans are fluid at the moment, but in the mid-term we would like to set up a not-for-profit organisation co-owned by our two universities to support developments through grants, charitable donations and profit-making activities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/68275/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>I am a Co-I for an MRC-funded research project connected to this work (to carry out a series of trials in Namibia). I am also the PI of a research project funded by the Life Sciences Bridging Fund that focuses on the development of this pack for production. Lastly I have applied as PI for funding from The Waterloo Foundation which, if successful, will support the development of the pack into sustainable manufacture, distribution and use in Zambia.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Clara Watkins works for Cardiff Metropolitan University owns shares in the Trauma Pack. </span></em></p>A project that aims to change the fate of accident victims in developing countries.Steve Gill, Professor of Product Design, Cardiff Metropolitan UniversityClara Watkins, Lecturer and Research Officer in Product Design, Cardiff Metropolitan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/651532016-09-29T00:24:15Z2016-09-29T00:24:15ZAustralia’s proposed war crimes amendments demand careful scrutiny<p>Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull <a href="https://malcolmturnbull.com.au/media/national-security-statement-on-counter-terrorism">announced</a> this month that the government will seek to amend the <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/cca1995115/sch1.html">Criminal Code</a> to assist in the fight against Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and Syria. The <a href="http://www.minister.defence.gov.au/2016/09/01/prime-minister-minister-for-defence-australian-defence-force-targeting-of-daesh/">changes flagged</a> include:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… targeting those who may not openly take up arms but are still key to Daesh’s [another name for IS] fighting capability. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Defence Minister Marise Payne explained that the amendments would enable the Australian Defence Force to target a broader range of IS combatants. Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has indicated Labor <a href="http://www.billshorten.com.au/statement_on_national_security_canberra_thursday_1_september_2016">will support</a> the amendments.</p>
<p>Changes to Division 268 of the Criminal Code would clarify that the war crimes offence of murder would not apply to members of an organised armed group. Also, murder would not apply to collateral civilian deaths resulting from an otherwise lawful attack.</p>
<p>If enacted, this would align Australian domestic law with international law. The government, however, has not yet explained the relevant differences between these laws.</p>
<h2>What is lawful in conflict?</h2>
<p>The Criminal Code, which in part deals with offences in a non-international armed conflict, currently includes an offence of murder. If a perpetrator causes the death of one or more persons not taking an active part in the hostilities, they face a penalty of life imprisonment.</p>
<p>Under current domestic law, if the perpetrator knows, or is reckless as to whether the person or persons are not taking an active part in the hostilities, and attacks, they have broken the law.</p>
<p>International humanitarian law, or the law of armed conflict, has very detailed rules about this. Targeting people “who are not taking an active part in the hostilities” is unlawful. </p>
<p>In 2009, the International Committee of the Red Cross <a href="https://www.icrc.org/eng/assets/files/other/icrc-002-0990.pdf">released</a> the Interpretive Guidance on the Notion of Direct Participation in Hostilities under International Humanitarian Law.</p>
<p>Some American military lawyers have criticised this document. The main criticism is that it blurs the line between civilians who take an active part in hostilities and members of organised armed groups. State practice also diverges from the Red Cross guidance to some extent.</p>
<h2>How do we decide who is a citizen?</h2>
<p>The Red Cross guidance is based on the fundamental international humanitarian law principle of distinction between armed forces, or members of organised armed groups like IS, and civilians. It says:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… all persons who are not members of state armed forces or organised armed groups of a party to the conflict are civilians and, therefore, entitled to protection against direct attack unless … they take a direct part in hostilities.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Individuals who continuously accompany or support an organised armed group, but who do not directly participate in hostilities, are not members of that group within the meaning of international humanitarian law. This is because they do not carry out a “continuous combat function”. </p>
<p>Personnel like recruiters, trainers, financiers and propagandists may not be targeted. This is also true of individuals involved in purchasing, smuggling, manufacturing and maintaining weapons. Unless their activities amount to direct participation in hostilities, they are protected by international humanitarian law. </p>
<p>How far the continuous combat function extends, though, is open to debate. It may extend, for example, to the makers of improvised explosive devices.</p>
<h2>Who would lose protection under the changes?</h2>
<p>Under the proposed changes to Australia’s Criminal Code, the war crime offence of murder, in a non-international armed conflict, would not apply to collateral civilian deaths resulting from an otherwise lawful attack. Clearly, the definition of what constitutes a “lawful attack” needs careful examination. </p>
<p>In international humanitarian law, a lawful attack is one that conforms to <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=pOokAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA330&lpg=PA330&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false">fundamental principles</a> of military necessity and humanity. Specifically, only to the degree: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>… that is required in order to achieve the legitimate purpose of the conflict. Namely, the complete or partial submission of the enemy at the earliest possible moment, with the minimum expenditure of life and resources. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This severely restricts military action that would result in “collateral civilian deaths”. Part of the objective in amending the war crimes provisions seems to be to incorporate the international humanitarian law principle of <a href="https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/customary-ihl/eng/docs/v1_cha_chapter4_rule14">proportionality</a>. </p>
<p>An attack expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life or injury to civilians would therefore be unlawful. If it would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated, it would breach the Criminal Code.</p>
<p>These proposed amendments, when released, should be examined carefully. They must maintain the constraints on military operations imposed by international humanitarian law, which are carefully observed by the Australian Defence Force.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/65153/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kevin Boreham does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Under proposed changes, the war crime offence of murder, in a non-international armed conflict, would not apply to collateral civilian deaths resulting from an otherwise lawful attack.Kevin Boreham, Lecturer in International Law, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.