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UN, Red Cross voice deep concern over brazen and brutal erosion of respect for humanitarian law
by ICRC, OCHA, UN News, agencies
8:21pm 23rd Mar, 2016
 
25 March 2016
  
International humanitarian law is unravelling before our eyes, write Jan Egeland and Stephen O’Brien.
  
In 1945, when world leaders boldly committed to save future generations from the scourge of war, their pledge led to the foundation of the United Nations and to modern international humanitarian law.
  
The turmoil that ensued was a far cry from the picture of peace and diplomacy they had in mind. In the decades that followed, civilians experienced devastation caused by conflicts that played out completely differently to the two world wars – marked by proxy conflicts and fierce battles of ideology fought in the name of religion or regime change.
  
But the consequences of these conflicts were all too familiar: civilians injured or killed; children and women raped and abused; towns and cities razed to the ground; and whole communities forced from their homes, bringing mass displacement up to post-world war two records, at well over 60 million people.
  
Today’s civil wars involve a greater number of factions making them even more complex to bring to resolution. They are characterised by shocking levels of brutality meted out on civilians and an all-pervasive impunity for perpetrators. People in besieged areas are deliberately starved, intimidated and deprived of essential goods – sometimes for years at a time, with impunity.
  
Homes, schools, hospitals and places of worship are bombed at alarming levels often with patients, staff, families, worshippers and students still inside.
  
Many of today’s conflicts lack a clear frontline and are more likely to take place in densely populated urban settings with civilians in the crossfire. When populated urban areas are attacked with explosive weapons, 90% of the people killed or injured are civilians.
  
We stand at a critical juncture: 150 years of achievement in signing up to international laws and agreeing to international norms to protect civilians in conflict zones, are unravelling before our eyes.
  
To reset the international system to better meet the needs of the millions of people whose lives are torn apart by violence, three areas at the core of the humanitarian enterprise must urgently be addressed – access, principles and protection.
  
In May, states will gather for a humanitarian summit in Istanbul, where they will have a unique chance to commit to concrete changes in each of these areas.
  
First, access. All over the world – and at a staggering scale in Syria – warring parties deny or obstruct access to aid organisations trying to reach communities in need. This barring of access may be blatant: attacking and killing aid workers, looting their supplies, outright denying safe passage, or it may be more subtle, coming in the form of burdensome bureaucratic measures.
  
Siege is a barbaric tactic of war that has no place in the 21st century. Harrowing images of starving children in Syria’s besieged town of Madaya at the beginning of this year have shaken us all, but all over the world there are hundreds of Madayas: in Sudan, in Yemen, in Myanmar, in Nigeria – people are barred from accessing assistance while aid workers engage in difficult, dangerous and complex access negotiations with warring parties, sometimes with success, often with none.
  
Secondly, at the summit, leaders must come prepared to renew their commitments to the core humanitarian principles – humanity, impartiality, neutrality and independence – that guide our work. Preserving our neutrality and our refusal to take sides in conflict, as well as our independence from political agendas, are essential to achieving our mission to protect and provide assistance to affected populations based on needs alone.
  
Abiding by these principles allows us to build acceptance with fighting parties and communities and to reach the frontlines of crisis. The politicisation of aid leads to suspicion of our mission, undermining our work and putting in danger the lives of our staff and the people we are supposed to protect and assist.
  
Third, protection is at the cornerstone of humanitarian action. Over the past 150 years, and in the past two decades in particular, we have put unstinting efforts into strengthening international legal frameworks governing the rules of war.
  
Yet we are witnessing a brazen and brutal lack of respect for these rules. Warring parties must abide by the rules of distinction, proportionality and precaution.
  
We can no longer stand by as families are deliberately and indiscriminately bombed in their homes, while the bombers go unpunished. It is heart-rending to provide food and water to families only for them to risk being shot as they come to get aid, or if humanitarian workers are targeted.
  
It is hopeless to build hospitals if we cannot guarantee the safety of patients and healthcare staff.
  
Counter-terrorism and asymmetric warfare do not justify the loosening or dismissal of the rules that aim to protect civilians in conflict. Enough is enough. Even wars have rules.
  
In his report One Humanity, Shared Responsibility and his agenda for humanity, the UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon calls for global leadership to prevent and end conflicts, and on global leaders to uphold the norms that safeguard humanity. Governments must commit to setting up of a watchdog to track, collect data and report on violations of international humanitarian law.
  
He also calls for greater support for national justice systems and international judicial bodies, such as the international criminal court, to bring an end to impunity. We look forward to commitments on each of these and many other initiatives at the world humanitarian summit.
  
The vision set in the UN charter after world war two remains relevant, but global leaders must now reinforce the foundations that make up the humanitarian system. The world humanitarian summit will be a turning point in how states, international organisations, the private sector, civil society and individual leaders, come together to confront the major challenges of our time.
  
Leaders have shown what they are capable of when they commit to change. Last year in Paris on climate change, in New York on the 2030 sustainable development agenda, in Sendai on risk reduction, leaders demonstrated the power of political leadership to make progress on some of the most difficult issues all of us, across the world, are facing.
  
We must harness this level of political momentum to deliver this success in May in Istanbul and ensure necessary protection of civilians and access to humanitarian assistance for the generations that succeed us.
  
* Jan Egeland is secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council and a former UN emergency relief coordinator. Stephen O’Brien is UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator.
  
http://www.unocha.org/ http://www.nrc.no/ http://sgreport.worldhumanitariansummit.org/ http://www.worldhumanitariansummit.org/
  
Feb 2016
  
UN, Red Cross voice deep concern over brazen and brutal erosion of respect for humanitarian law. (ICRC, United Nations News)
  
Warning of rising number of deliberate attacks on civilians across the world, the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today urged an end to the callous disregard for human life and stressed on stronger commitment from Member States to bring perpetrators of such attacks to account.
  
“From Afghanistan to the Central African Republic, from Ukraine to Yemen, combatants and those who control them are defying humanity"s most basic rules. Every day, civilians – ordinary women, men and children – are being deliberately or recklessly injured and killed, tortured and abducted.
  
Every hour, people in dire circumstances are being denied the medical care, food, water and shelter they need to survive,” said Mr. Ban at a joint press encounter with Mr. Peter Maurer, President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Geneva.
  
The UN chief said that airstrikes are increasing in besieged populated areas and cited the killing of dozens of people yesterday, when Syrian government forces fired missiles into a marketplace in Douma and the continual indiscriminate firing of rockets in Damascus.
  
“Such deliberate targeting of civilians and civilian areas is a clear breach of international law. The continuing violence is a clear indication that a political solution to the conflict in Syria is desperately needed – the fighting must stop now. There is no military solution to the crisis – not in Syria or anywhere else,” said Mr. Ban.
  
Additionally, he deplored the attacks on healthcare facilities and reiterated that they hold a special protected status under international humanitarian law.
  
Mr. Ban said that the attack on a Yemeni hospital in Saada last week is the 39th health centre attack since March and added that more children may die in Yemen from a lack of healthcare and medicines than from bullets and bombs.
  
He also condemned the bombing of the Médecins Sans Frontières hospital earlier this month in Kunduz, Afghanistan and said that the supposed surgical strike “instead destroyed a surgical ward”.
  
“These violations have become so routine there is a risk people will think that the deliberate bombing of civilians, the targeting of humanitarian and healthcare workers, and attacks on schools, hospitals and places of worship are an inevitable result of conflict,” said Mr. Ban.
  
He sounded alarm over the constant flouting of international humanitarian law across the world and added that the international community should bring the attackers to account.
  
“Even war has rules; it is time to enforce them,” said Mr. Ban. “The continued failure to act is a disgrace and a stain on the conscience of the world,” he added.
  
He stressed that protecting civilians in wartime is the cornerstone in the international system and the UN and added that indifference on such issues will only make the world less secure.
  
“Today, the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross are calling for an end to impunity, an end to the callous disregard for human life, and a recommitment to international humanitarian law,” said Mr. Ban urging collaborative action from the international community.
  
He further called for all influential parties to “pressure all parties in conflict to treat civilians with humanity and to abide by the law” and initiate political and diplomatic measures by bringing referrals to national and special investigative tribunals or courts.
  
Mr. Ban also urged on ending the use of heavy explosive weapons in densely populated urban areas, causing deaths of civilians.
  
He also called for allowing humanitarian access in conflict-prone regions to help people who need aid and asked the international community to give additional support to displaced population and refugees.
  
He added that the UN and ICRC are taking immediate steps to address these issues and added that the one of the main themes of the World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul next May will be protecting civilians in conflicts.
  
“But international humanitarian law is not a solution. It is a way to mitigate the damage caused by war. Most of all, we call for greater commitment and effective action to prevent and end conflicts. Long-term solutions lie in treating the root causes of war and in negotiating sustainable peace,” added Mr. Ban.
  
He called for stronger commitment and partnerships among the Member States to maintain peace and security failing which “we can expect only greater chaos and suffering”.
  
"Rarely before have we witnessed so many people on the move, so much instability, so much suffering," said Peter Maurer, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
  
"In armed conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria, South Sudan, Syria, Yemen, and elsewhere, combatants are defying humanity’s most fundamental norms.
  
Every day, we hear of civilians being killed and wounded in violation of the basic rules of international humanitarian law, and with total impunity. Instability is spreading. Suffering is growing. No country can remain untouched."
  
Citing figures that are the highest they"ve been since the Second World War, the two agencies said that sixty million people around the world have now been displaced from their homes because of conflict and violence. What"s more, they say, today"s conflicts have become more protracted, meaning that many displaced people face years away from their homes, communities and livelihoods.
  
Both Mr. Maurer and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon stressed that the institutions they lead are in a unique position to bear witness to the consequences of these numerous conflicts around the world as they condemned the heads of nation states for doing far too little.
  
"In the face of blatant inhumanity, the world has responded with disturbing paralysis," said Ban. "This flouts the very raison d’être of the United Nations. The world must reaffirm its humanity and uphold its commitments under international humanitarian law. Today we speak with one voice to urge all States to take immediate, concrete steps to ease the plight of civilians."
  
Offering at least a partial set of solutions to the global crisis of war and conflict, the UN and ICRC leaders called on leaders of world government"s to the following urgent actions:
  
Redouble efforts to find sustainable solutions to conflicts and take concrete steps to that effect. Individually and collectively, use every means to wield influence over parties to armed conflict to respect the law, including carrying out effective investigations into breaches of international humanitarian law, holding perpetrators accountable, and developing concrete mechanisms to improve compliance.
  
Condemn those who commit serious violations of international humanitarian law, such as deliberate attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure.
  
Ensure unhindered access to medical and humanitarian missions and protect medical and humanitarian workers and facilities. Protect and assist internally displaced people and refugees while they are fleeing insecurity, and help them to find long-term solutions, while supporting host countries and communities. Stop the use of heavy explosive weapons in populated areas.
  
http://blogs.icrc.org/law-and-policy/2016/05/24/uphold-norms-safeguard-humanity/ http://bit.ly/2bUan3T
  
Feb. 2016
  
InterAction NGO community stresses need to restore Respect for Civilians in Armed Conflict
  
The scale and severity of human suffering in current armed conflicts represent a distressing race to the bottom in disregard for the basic rules regulating armed conflict.
  
Parties to conflict all too frequently use indiscriminate force in populated areas; deliberately target civilians as well as their homes, hospitals, schools, and other infrastructure; and fail to take precautions in the conduct of military operations. Much of this loss of life and human suffering is avoidable. This is precisely what international humanitarian law, also known as the law of armed conflict, is for – to limit the effects of armed conflict.
  
Focusing in particular on the acute nature of civilian harm in Syria and Yemen, InterAction’s new policy brief, “Civilians Under Fire: Restore Respect for International Humanitarian Law,” calls on President Obama and his administration to take a series of steps to communicate the United States’ intentions to minimize civilian harm in its own military operations and encourage others to respond in kind.
  
Specifically, the policy brief outlines several policy initiatives for the Obama Administration to help restore respect for the basic rules which protect people during armed conflict, including:
  
Issue a presidential statement affirming respect for the protections to which civilians and civilian objects are entitled, including humanitarian and medical facilities and personnel. Adopt and implement, including through training, a standing operational policy on civilian protection and harm mitigation applicable to all branches of the armed services.
  
Condition U.S. support for and cooperation with foreign forces (both state and non-state) on compliance with international humanitarian law; and set clear benchmarks for enhanced measures by all parties to mitigate civilian harm in Syria and Yemen.
  
http://www.interaction.org/article/InterAction-Stresses-Need-Restore-Respect-Civilians-Armed-Conflict http://www.interaction.org/newsroom-highlight/interaction-news/guardian-worthington-op-ed-dear-obama http://aoav.org.uk/2016/14177/
  
19 January 2016
  
Fate of civilians in armed conflict ‘grim’ with thousands killed, hospitals under attack reports Jan Eliasson, UN Deputy Secretary-General.
  
With scores of civilians being killed in conflicts worldwide, tens of thousands facing starvation in besieged cities, and hospitals under attack, the United Nations Security Council held a day-long session today amid calls for greater accountability and expanded use of the International Criminal Court.
  
“The reality on the ground is grim and bleak,” UN Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson told the Council at the start of the session on the ‘Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict.’
  
“In conflicts around the world, great numbers of civilians are deliberately or recklessly killed, maimed, tortured and abducted. Sexual violence is rampant,” he said.
  
“Hospitals must be sanctuaries in wartime. But recently we have seen a surge in attacks on hospitals and health centres. In Afghanistan, an airstrike destroyed a surgical ward with devastation everywhere. In Yemen, hospitals have been attacked and children, who have not been killed by bullets and bombs, are dying from the lack of medicine and health-care,” he stressed.
  
He noted that in 2014, 92 per cent of those killed or injured by explosive weapons in populated areas were civilians, with 19,000 civilians killed in Iraq between January 2014 and October 2015 and the “horrible reality” in the Syrian town of Madaya, where thousands of people have been denied food and medical treatment for months, leading to starvation and death.
  
“This carnage of innocent people must not continue,” he declared. “Let us remember that Madaya is just one place where this, shamefully, is happening – and this, today, in the 21st century,” Mr. Eliasson underscored.
  
“A siege that denies people access to the basic necessities of life is one of the gravest violations of international law and an affront to our shared humanity,” he continued, noting that UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has recently condemned such violations, naming them war crimes. “These crimes simply must stop, end now,” he added.
  
Mr. Eliasson cited the new challenges presented by non-State extremist groups such as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and Boko Haram in West Africa. “These groups brazenly and brutally murder thousands of people, kidnap young girls, systematically deny women’s rights, destroy cultural institutions and undermine the peaceful values of religions,” he said.
  
In the face of such ubiquitous violations of human rights he called for enhanced efforts to prevent conflicts in the first place, and where this failed to ensure full accountability through the accession of all States to the International Criminal Court which was set up to judge war crimes and crimes against humanity, as well as by domestic adoption of robust criminal legislation.
  
Also briefing the Council, International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Vice-President Christine Beerli warned that violations of international humanitarian law are occurring daily. “Explosive weapons are used indiscriminately in populated areas. Civilian populations and civilian objects are deliberately targeted,” she said.
  
“Civilian communities are forcibly displaced and trapped in lengthy sieges, deprived of means of survival. Women and men, girls and boys are regularly the victims of rape and sexual violence. Schools are attacked or used for military purposes, leading to their loss of protection against attack. Detainees are summarily executed, tortured and kept in inhumane conditions and denied due process of law,” she explained.
  
Dec 2015
  
International humanitarian law and the challenges of contemporary armed conflicts, by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)
  
This is the fourth report on international humanitarian law (IHL) and the challenges of contemporary armed conflicts prepared by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) for the International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent (International Conference December 2015). The first three reports were submitted to the previous conferences held in 2003, 2007 and 2011.
  
These reports aim to provide an overview of some of the challenges posed by contemporary armed conflicts for IHL, to generate broader reflection on those challenges and to outline ongoing or prospective ICRC action, positions and interest. The goal of this introductory section is to briefly outline the operational realities in which those challenges arise.
  
Since the last report in 2011, the spiral of armed conflict and violence has continued in most parts of the world. Political, ethnic, national or religious grievances and the struggle for access to critical resources remained at the source of many ongoing cycles of armed conflict, and have sparked recent outbreaks of hostilities.
  
A number of conflict trends have become even more acute in the last few years, such as the growing complexity of armed conflicts linked to the fragmentation of armed groups and asymmetric warfare; the regionalization of conflicts; the challenges of decades-long wars; the absence of effective international conflict resolution; and the collapse of national systems.
  
With few exceptions, almost all of the armed conflicts that have occurred in the past few years are the result of the “conflict trap”: conflicts engendering conflicts, parties to armed conflict fracturing and multiplying, and new parties intervening in ongoing conflicts. Unresolved tensions that have lasted for years and decades continue to deplete resources and severely erode the social fabric and the means of resilience of affected populations.
  
The turmoil that escalated in parts of the Middle East during the so-called Arab Spring in 2011 – which degenerated into devastating armed conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Yemen in particular – was also felt far beyond the region by countries that began to support the many parties to those conflicts in various ways.
  
Basic means of survival are becoming increasingly limited for people already struggling to cope with the effects of recurrent upheaval, drought and chronic impoverishment. Countries like Afghanistan, South Sudan, the Central African Republic, Somalia, Libya and the Democratic Republic of the Congo continue to be mired in protracted armed conflicts, causing immeasurable suffering for entire populations. In eastern Ukraine, the outbreak of a new armed conflict has already caused the death of thousands of people, many of whom are civilians, as well as massive destruction, and the displacement of over a million people.
  
In most armed conflicts, civilians continue to bear the brunt of the hostilities, especially when fighting takes place in densely populated areas or when civilians are deliberately targeted. Thousands of people are being detained, often outside any legal framework and often subject to ill treatment or inhuman conditions of detention. The number of persons going missing as a result of armed conflict is dramatic.
  
The devastation caused by violence has prompted increasing numbers of people to flee their communities, leaving their homes and livelihoods behind and facing the prospect of long-term displacement and exile. The number of internally displaced persons (IDPs), refugees and asylum seekers uprooted by ongoing armed conflicts and violence worldwide has soared in the past two years. In 2013, for the first time since the Second World War, their total number exceeded 50 million people, over half of whom were IDPs. This negative trend continued in 2014, as conflict situations deteriorated.
  
The international humanitarian sector is at risk of reaching breaking point. The ICRC and other impartial humanitarian organizations are facing humanitarian needs on an epic scale, in an unprecedented number of concurrent crises around the world. The gap between those needs and the ability of humanitarian actors to meet them is impossible to bridge.
  
The incapacity of the international system to maintain peace and security has, among other things, had the effect of shifting the focus of international engagement from conflict resolution to humanitarian activities. Thus, much energy has been spent on negotiations about humanitarian access, humanitarian pauses, local ceasefires, evacuations of civilians, humanitarian corridors or freezes, etc.
  
While achieving consensus about humanitarian access and the provision of assistance to those in need is to be welcomed, the political antagonisms that often accompany such debates carry the risk of tarnishing the very notion of impartial humanitarian action and run counter to its object and purpose.
  
As a background to this report on legal challenges related to armed conflicts, some salient trends of contemporary armed conflicts should be highlighted, since many of the challenges arise as a consequence of new conflict patterns.
  
The ever increasing complexity arising from the multitude of parties and their conflictual relations is a noticeable feature of contemporary armed conflicts. On the State side, the number of foreign interventions in many ongoing armed conflicts contributes substantially to the multiplication of actors involved.
  
In many situations, third States and/or international organizations, such as the United Nations (UN) or the African Union (AU), intervene, sometimes themselves becoming parties to the conflict. This intervention – in support of States or of non-State armed groups – poses extremely complex questions concerning conflict classification. These often arise because of a lack of precise information about the nature of the involvement of third parties but also when third parties do not acknowledge their participation in the hostilities at all.
  
Regardless, it will be important for the ICRC to continue to engage with States in the months and years to come on the humanitarian and legal consequences of the support they provide to parties to armed conflicts.
  
On the non-State side, a myriad of fluid, multiplying and fragmenting armed groups frequently take part in the fighting. Often, their structure is difficult to understand. The multiplication of such groups poses a number of risks for the civilian population, the first being that it necessarily entails an increase of the front lines with the ensuing risk that civilians will be caught in the fighting.
  
The multiplication of non-State armed groups also signifies a greater strain on resources, especially natural and financial, as every new party needs to sustain itself. Also, although this is difficult to quantify, as parties multiply and split societies become fractured. Communities and families come under pressure and are divided over their allegiance to different armed groups, people are at higher risk of being associated with one of the many parties, and thus at higher risk of reprisals.
  
As far as humanitarian action is concerned, the opacity or lack of the chain of command or control of some groups poses a challenge not only in terms of security but also for engaging such groups on issues of protection and compliance with IHL.
  
In terms of the territorial span, the spillover of conflicts into neighbouring countries, their geographical expanse and their regionalization also appear to have become a distinctive feature of many contemporary armed conflicts – partly as a consequence of the above-mentioned foreign involvements. This is the case especially in today’s Middle East but also in North and West Africa.
  
In Syria, the split within the armed opposition, the spillover of the armed conflict into neighbouring countries, some of which were already burdened by their own conflicts, and the multiplication of intervening foreign States and armed groups is leading to a regional situation in which some of the conflictual relations are barely comprehensible.
  
In the Sahel region, elusive and highly mobile armed groups are fighting each other as well as a number of governments, affecting already vulnerable populations. Another example of the territorial span is the armed conflict against Boko Haram, which already involves at least four States.
  
For the ICRC, the brutality and mercilessness of many contemporary armed conflicts is a cause for deep alarm. Egregious violations of IHL are being committed every day, by both States and non-State parties. In many situations, this is linked to a denial of the applicability or relevance of IHL.
  
On the part of non-State armed groups, there is sometimes a rejection of IHL, which some parties do not feel bound by. In addition to this, recent armed conflicts have seen a rise in the deliberate commission of violations of IHL by some non-State armed groups and their use of media to publicize those violations. The ultimate aim of this may be to benefit from the significant negative impression conveyed by the media coverage in order to rally support, as well as to undermine support for the adversary.
  
On the part of States, it is often, though not always, the result of counterterrorism measures and discourses, which the ICRC has recently observed to be hardening. It remains the case that some States deny the existence of armed conflicts, rendering dialogue difficult on the humanitarian consequences of the conflict and the protection of those affected by it.
  
To deny the basic protections of IHL to combatants and civilians is to deny IHL’s core aims of protecting human life, physical integrity and dignity. As has been repeated in all previous ICRC reports on IHL and the challenges of contemporary armed conflicts, the single most important challenge to IHL continues to be that it should be better respected.
  
It remains the ICRC’s firm belief that in spite of the inevitable suffering that armed conflicts entail, the sorrow and pain of victims of armed conflicts would be lessened if the parties to armed conflicts respected the letter and spirit of IHL.
  
* Visit the following external links for more details:
  
http://www.icrc.org/en/what-we-do/protecting-civilians http://www.icrc.org/en/document/conflict-disaster-crisis-UN-red-cross-issue-warning http://www.icrc.org/en/document/international-humanitarian-law-and-challenges-contemporary-armed-conflicts http://www.icrc.org/en/what-we-do/building-respect-ihl http://www.icrc.org/en/war-and-law/ihl-other-legal-regmies/ihl-human-rights http://www.icrc.org/en/war-and-law/contemporary-challenges-for-ihl/respect-ihl http://www.icrc.org/en/document/no-agreement-states-mechanism-strengthen-compliance-rules-war http://www.icrc.org/en/document/what-should-we-do-when-world-burning-start-restoring-laws-war http://www.icrc.org/en/war-and-law
  
http://www.securitycouncilreport.org/un-documents/protection-of-civilians/ http://www.un.org/en/preventgenocide/adviser/ http://guide-humanitarian-law.org/content/index/ http://www.unocha.org/what-we-do/policy/thematic-areas/protection http://www.refworld.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/rwmain?page=civilians http://www.unric.org/en/unric-library/26575 http://childrenandarmedconflict.un.org/ http://www.unicef.org/protection/57929_58022.html http://www.protectingeducation.org/ http://healthcareindanger.org/ http://www.globalprotectioncluster.org/en/tools-and-guidance/essential-protection-guidance-and-tools/protection-of-civilians-essential-guidance-and-tools.html http://www.humanitarianresponse.info/en/coordination/clusters/global
  
http://webtv.un.org/meetings-events/conferencessummits/world-humanitarian-summit-23-24-may-2016-istanbul-turkey/watch/international-humanitarian-law-and-protecting-civilians-in-conflict-press-conference-world-humanitarian-summit-23-24-may-2016-istanbul-turkey/4908829050001 http://goo.gl/YFf082 http://bit.ly/2c70TFA http://bit.ly/2bnBxnV
  
* June 2016 UN WebTV Special humanitarian and disaster relief assistance high-level panel discussion: “Impediments to the protection of civilians”: http://bit.ly/2bNDxW9 http://bit.ly/2bNrtQ6

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