Side-event at the 33th International conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent

On 12 December 2019, in collaboration with the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights, Geneva Call held a side-event on armed non-State actors (ANSA) and international humanitarian law (IHL) on the fringes of the 33th International conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent in Geneva.

The event, moderated by Verity Robson, Legal Counsellor at the UK Permanent Mission to the UN in Geneva, was attended by more than one hundred people. It offered the opportunity to present the preliminary findings of a unique research project in which Geneva Call and the Geneva Academy have embarked recently on the practice and interpretation of IHL by ANSAs. Compliance with IHL is a major challenge in today’s armed conflicts. Understanding how ANSAs view their IHL obligations is key to informing humanitarian actors’ engagement strategies and ultimately to improving humanitarian access and protection, all panellists agree.

Speakers included Dr. Annyssa Bellal, Senior Research Fellow and Strategic Adviser on IHL at the Geneva Academy, Pascal Bongard, Head of the Policy and Legal Unit at Geneva Call, Dr. Fiona Terry, Head of the Centre for Operational Research and Experience at ICRC and co-author of the 2018 study ‘The Roots of Restraint in War’, James Munn, Director of Humanitarian Policy and Representative of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) in Geneva and Reka Dobri, Policy Officer at the European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (ECHO).

See here for details on the project.