Protection of Civilians

The Responsibility to Protect calls on national authorities, regional organizations and global institutions to cooperate in the protection of civilians from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. Much work needs to be done to identify the scope of civilian protection, the measures needed to protect civilians and best practices.

Despite an overall reduction in the number of armed conflicts across the globe, the character and victims of contemporary warfare have changed dramatically. The targeting of civilians in conflict has become increasingly prevalent in the post-Cold War era. How to provide protection to these vulnerable populations has become and enduring challenge of our times. The ‘Protection of Civilians' (POC) has its roots firmly in established and universal principles of international humanitarian law (IHL) as well as human rights and refugee law.

In the broadest sense, the Protection of Civilians (POC) constitutes the full range of activities that intergovernmental organisations, countries, international/local NGOs, and individuals can pursue to advance the legal and physical protection of civilians, particularly in the context of armed conflict. This notion of protection can be understood to include:

• Physical protect from immediate harm;
• Satisfaction of needs essential for the sustenance of life;
• Freedom to exercise fundamental human rights.

•· Conceptually, the Responsibility to Protect (RtoP) and POC are distinct but very closely linked. Put most simply, the RtoP is a framework for realising the POC in the most egregious cases - i.e. prevention of and protection from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity - though the whole POC agenda is substantially wider than that covered by RtoP, and aspects of the preventive components of RtoP extend beyond POC. However, beyond this, the operational relationship between POC and the RtoP remains unclear. More work is needed to understand what protection activities contribute to preventing the escalation or constitute an effective response to the commission of mass atrocity crimes and hence, how and where the two concepts are symbiotic.

The The program on the protection of civilians (POC) is designed to harness research as the foundation for engagement in policy development and advocacy initiatives to address these challenges.

Forthcoming Events

Past Events

2-3 December: Presentation: Charles Hunt, 'Mainstreaming the Responsibility to Protect in Peace Operations', National Institute of Defence Studies, Tokyo, Japan.

Civilian Protection and Human Security - Jakarta (June 2009)

Reports and Briefings

Protection of Civilians and the Responsibility to Protect Update Report 2 (November 2009)

Protection of Civilians and the Responsibility to Protect: Perspectives_and_Precedents_in_the_Asia_Pacific - Working Paper No 2 (October 2009)

Protecting Civilians in Uncivil Wars - Working Paper No 1 (August 2009)

Protection of Civilians and the Responsibility to Protect - Update Report (February 2009)

Protection of Civilians and the Responsibility to Protect (June 2008)

Program on the Protection of Civilians: Background and Scope (March 2008)

Contact

Charlie Hunt
Program Leader – Protection of Civilians
Asia-Pacific Centre for the Responsibility to Protect
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