World Humanitarian Summit: “Upholding the norms that safeguard humanity”

At the invitation of the United Nations, a delegation of Geneva Call participated in the World Humanitarian Summit that took place in Istanbul, Turkey, from 23 to 24 May.

Geneva Call had the opportunity to address the high-level Leaders’ roundtable “Uphold the norms that safeguard humanity” which gathered Heads of State and Government as well as leaders of international and civil society organizations. During the roundtable, Geneva Call made six commitments to reinforce its engagement with armed non-State actors on the respect of international humanitarian and human rights law. (Read the full statement here)

« We believe that engagement with non-State armed groups is instrumental to enhance their accountability under international law.  It is important that all parties to conflict know and respect the rules, so they remain fighters and not killers » stated Hichem Khadhraoui, Geneva Call’s Head of Operations at the roundtable.

Geneva Call was also invited to speak at a Chatham House side-event on “Principled engagement with non-State armed groups for humanitarian purposes” and at a Qatari Red Crescent side-event on the “Provisions and ethics of war in Islam and international humanitarian law”.

In addition, Geneva Call released a new study “In their words: Perceptions of armed non-State actors on humanitarian action” on the occasion of the World Humanitarian Summit.  The study analyses the views of 19 armed non-State actors from 11 different countries, including Syria, Iraq, Sudan, Colombia and Burma/Myanmar, on issues that were discussed during the Summit, such as humanitarian access and principles. The study draws a number of recommendations intended for humanitarian actors and the international community to ensure that armed non-State actors facilitate principled humanitarian action.