Protecting Civilians During Violent Conflict PDF Download

"In November 2015 the AIV received a request from the Minister of Foreign Affairs for advice on the protection of civilians in armed conflicts. In his request, he refers to shocking forms of violence, attacks that target civilians and a total lack of respect for life and human dignity. In addition, specific groups of civilians (religious minorities, women and girls, LGBTI people, journalists) are the targets of sexual and other forms of violence, torture, kidnapping, forced displacement, and recruitment into armed groups. In most situations the international community does not succeed in protecting civilians effectively. The Minister also observes that a solid normative framework for the protection of civilians (POC) exists, but that its implementation lags far behind. The Minister of Foreign Affairs put the following questions to the AIV: How can Dutch policy on POC in relation to conflict prevention be fleshed out further? How can the integrated approach be applied and improved to better address POC, with a special focus on the conflict prevention phase? Which instruments and channels can the Netherlands utilise to this end, in terms not only of bilateral support and initiatives but also of multilateral and multi-stakeholder cooperation? How can the Netherlands contribute to a better response, based on early-warning mechanisms, for instance in the framework of the 'Responsibility to Protect' (R2P), both at intergovernmental level and in specific situations in the field? If elected to a non-permanent seat on the UNSC, in what way could the Netherlands add value in the area of POC during its term? The request for advice emphasises prevention. The AIV has interpreted prevention in two ways, namely as the prevention of conflicts and as the prevention of acts of violence that give rise to casualties among the civilian population. Conflict prevention is appropriate when a conflict is still latent and violence has not yet attained a high level of intensity. The prevention of civilian casualties is relevant both when a conflict is latent and when it has erupted into intense violence. Once a violent conflict has come to an end, there should be few if any casualties among the civilian population caused by violence, but people may still fall victim to the indirect consequences of the conflict, such as hunger or disease. This advisory report focuses primarily on the latent and manifest conflict phases."--Foreword.