Why armed actors should pay more attention to civilian self-protection efforts
25 September 2024
Author: Marc Linning
While some civilians at the very outset of a new conflict or escalation of violence might temporarily freeze – being at a loss for what to actively do, many, if not most, very quickly transform and become pro-active, expert agents in their protection and the protection of the vulnerable. In this post, Linning explains dimensions of how civilian self-protection efforts can look in practice and where there are touchpoints and linkages with efforts by armed actors to protect civilians.
About the Beyond Compliance Blog Symposium
The Beyond Compliance Symposium has been developed within the framework of our research programme on Building Evidence on Promoting Restraint by Armed Actors. It brings together scholars and practitioners across the humanitarian, human rights, development and security sector fields to reflect on the conceptualisation of everyday negative lived experiences of armed conflict.
Understanding the personal, material, temporal and spatial scope of (civilian) harm and (humanitarian) need, as well as the characteristics and motivations of actors experiencing, causing, and exercising protective agency in relation to harm + need, represent crucial first steps in articulating effective responses. Contributions to the symposium also include reflections on legal and extra-legal strategies to prevent, reduce and redress harm + need, including through promotion of compliance with international humanitarian law and international human rights law and efforts aimed at generating restraint from violence and abuse.
Photo credit: © CIVIC/Daniel Brown
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