The Protection Of Civilians In Armed Conflict

 The Protection Of Civilians In Armed Conflict 

Mary Emmanuel

Nasarawa State University, Keffi

Introduction 

Armed conflicts have devastating consequences on civilian populations. 

The protection of civilians in times of war is a fundamental principle of international humanitarian law, aimed at minimizing civilian harm and upholding their rights. This essay explores the measures taken to safeguard civilians during armed conflicts and highlights the need for continued efforts to ensure their comprehensive protection.

There is an absolute prohibition against direct attacks on civilians, established both in treaty and customary law. Civilians are not always protected though, since there are exceptions laid out in international law. These exceptions are there due to a balancing between the protection of the civilian population and the civilian objects on one hand and having effective military advancement on the other. The discrepancy between direct attacks and these indiscriminate attacks is quite eminent, which is portrayed both in international law and the opinion juris of states. 

This essay will focus on the importance of protection of civilians by the armed forces in connection with the aforementioned international institutions. It also highlights the role of civil society and different sections of the civilians and how they are affected during the war. This will be followed with the recommendations and conclusion.

Firstly, we need to understand the key words protection, civilians and armed conflicts.

What is protection ?

Protection means the act of keeping someone or something safe from injury, damage, or loss, or to safeguard one from been injured or harmed. It is also measures taken to guard a thing against damage caused by external forces.

Who is a civilians ?

Civilians under international humanitarian law are “persons who are not members of the armed forces” and are not “combatants if they [do not] carry arms openly and respect the laws and customs of war”. It is slightly different from a non-combatant, as some non-combatants are not civilians (for example, military chaplains attached to the belligerent party or military personnel serving with a neutral country). Civilians in the territories of a party to an armed conflict are entitled to certain privileges under the customary laws of war and international treaties such as the Fourth Geneva Convention.

What is armed conflict?

An armed conflict is a contested incompatibility that concerns government and/or territory where the use of armed force between two parties, of which at least one is the government of a state, results in at least 25 battle-related deaths in one calendar year.

It is very important to understand the dynamics and sensitivities surrounding the concept of protection of civilians in today’s world. For soldiers protecting the civilians does not necessarily involves thoughtful reflection, it is instead a manifestation of the rigorous training with an objective to protect civilian. In similar vein, being a soldier, it is understood that when called upon to perform the peacekeeping missions abroad, there are certain set rules that need to be followed and certain duties that need to be performed in order to ensure culmination of a successful mission. 

The changed nature of warfare from interstate to intrastate, has consequently altered the innate features of peace-keeping missions. Peacekeepers are now deployed to separate two parties in a conflict; partiesengaged in exploiting the civilians by using them as a shield, or to exploit the gains of war and conflict. With the passage of time, certain atrocities such as theRwandan genocide necessitated the need for and institution of responsibility to protect (UNRIC).Responsibility to protect involves three explicit pillars: 

Responsibility to protect later evolved into two sub-categories which are protection of civilians and robust peacekeeping. 

Protecting civilians based on International human law, human rights and the refugee law has become a norm. However, an insight into the resolutions of the peace keeping missions reveals that the practical mandate of protecting civilians on field lies at great lengths from the issued directives(UNGA, 2009). 

This actually projects how the security Council looks conceives its policies. In addition, the Department of Peacekeeping Operations at the UN issued a concept note in 2009 regarding protection of civilians and later its comprehensive policy was released in April 2015.The implementing guidelines for the military contingents were made available during February 2016(DPKO, 2015). 

The compliance with this policy under the overall authority of the head of mission is mandatory for all civilian police and military personnel working in the peace keeping mission.

The concept of protection of civilians implies using all necessary means ranging from negotiations to the use of deadly force. However, it is important of illuminate that, ‘negotiations’ as a mean of communication to resolve any dispute or conflicts in an important factor. Generally, it starts with threats and goes on to the actual act of physical violence within the capabilities and the area of operation of the mission. 

The guiding principles of Protection of civiliansconstitute a set of legal and practical principles rooted in the UN Charter and International Law. They have their priority mandate in any circumstance that makes it the primary responsibility of the governments. To fulfill this responsibility, governments ensure the presence of peacekeepers and make them responsible for the protection of civilians in the conflict or war prone area. Peacekeepers are thus, on the active duty to protect the civilians amidst all the conflict between the warring parties. These peacekeepers are under the effective command and control unit to ensure the regular and operative accomplishment of the mission. The mission to ensure the protection of civilians is consistent with the principles of peacekeeping. Thus, the entire mission activity is synchronized to have a comprehensive approach as to achieve maximum results in minimum time. 

The peacekeepers responsible for the protection of civilians work in cooperation with other humanitarian actors and civil society with due regard for humanitarian principles. This approach aims at including the common public in the aforesaid activities. This also paves way for a community based or community centric input to the Protection of civiliansenterprise. 

In the process of ensuring the protection of civilians, one of the important factor to consider is the gender perspective. Peacekeepers recognize the sensitivity of places and situations where women (in particular) are subject to intense vulnerability and plan their responses accordingly. In addition to the gender perspective, consideration of children is also a key issue for the peacekeepers. Child rights and their protection is designated as a critical concern. The emphasis is primarily to make the mission a rewarding activity based on; a comprehensive approach in cooperation with humanitarian actors, a community based initiativeundertaken with due regard for the gender and child protection perspective. 

The comprehensive broadness of protection of civiliansis embedded in a three tier model of action. The three tiers are mutually accommodating and reinforcing and as such should be implemented simultaneously. Thereis no inherent hierarchy or sequencing between these actions. All three tires emphasize prevention and preemption alongside the host state’s responsibility to protect civilians. 

In the first tier, protection through dialogue and engagement is ensured. This is the initial phase where the peacekeepers focus on dialogues to protect the civilians from the conflicting parties. They make sure that the conflicting parties keep away the civilians from their conflict by all means possible. This phase is the most critical phase, where the peacekeepers seek toestablish dialogues between the two conflicting parties so that their rivalry doesn’t harm the public. 

The second tier upholds the ‘physical’ protection of the civilians. This provision of physical protection is the step to make sure that no civilian gets in the way of the rivalry between the conflicting parties. 

Finally in the third tier, the peacekeepers or soldiers work on the establishment of a protective environment.The operational phases of protection of civilians are divided into four sub phases; prevention, prevention, response and consolidation. And these phases do not necessarily occur in sequential order and may be undertaken simultaneously and/or independently. 

MEASURES TAKEN TO SAFEGUARD CIVILIANS DURING ARMED CONFLICTS 

This means the steps or processes taken by the government to protect civilians during international and domestic conflicts. These include; 

International Humanitarian Law (IHL) is a body of rules that regulates the conduct of parties engaged in armed conflicts, with the primary goal of protecting civilian lives and minimizing suffering. The guiding principles of IHL include distinction, proportionality, and precaution.

Several legal instruments provide the legal framework for the protection of civilians during armed conflicts. For example, The Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 specifically addresses the protection of civilians during times of international armed conflicts. Additional Protocols I and II were adopted in 1977, extending and clarifying the protections provided in the Geneva Conventions. These conventions oblige parties to uphold the rights and welfare of civilians, including access to healthcare, protection from torture, and freedom of movement.

SHORTFALLS TO THE PROTECTION OF CIVILIANS DURING ARMED CONFLICTS 

The gaps and shortcomings of the protection of civilians start with its planning process. The planning process for the individual missions is generally carried out without any insight into the kind of protection necessary for the setting, the threats being faced and the limitations of the setting. Consequently, theguideline that UN mandates protect civilians are not effectively translated into operational strategies. 

The impact of these ambiguities in the planning process has detrimental effects for the mission. Majority of current UN peacekeeping operations doesnot have mission wide strategies and address protection of civilians either as a day to day plan in order to tally mission assets or as threats to civilians in order to respond to crisis. Some missions have started developing indigenous tools and strategies yet they are viewed as substantially Adhoc installations. 

Prior information on the areas of mission installment has also emerged as a major challenge for in effective implementing of the protection of civilians. Despite the developed strategies that protect civilians, most missions do not have sufficient capacities to collect and analyze the information needed to address the day to day threats consequently lacking the ability to predict the potential crisis that could lead to rapid escalations of violence.

With regards to the role of leadership in protection of civilians, both senior civilian and military mission leaders alike demonstrate no consistency in their level of understanding or the relative prioritization of the issue. Therefore, practically the senior leaderships are rather decisive in ensuring that the said task is carried out in its entirety. 

Furthermore, availability of the resources is another pivotal factor. This is because, peacekeeping missions need the requisite structure and capacity to develop and implement protection strategies. Unfortunately, no consistent approach exists that effectively configures both, the issue of leadership and lack of resources. 

To this end, it is important to acknowledge that no peacekeeping mission can be effective in its  essence if the missions are not designed and resourced to support its main objectives.  Besides, it has been widely observed that the military component in a mission is  invariably deployed based on political considerations. Such an approach does not take into account the military aspects and the military response planning which would  dictate the response of the mission troops to various contingencies. 

It has also been  observed that early warning systems are practically nonexistent. Therefore, they have  to be developed individually by the contingents on their own. Flexibility and mobility  in a high threat environment is essential where protection ofconcerned, necessitating a  response on a 24-hour basis. A special component of various battalions should be  ready to respond immediately, most importantly, missions need air lift capacities to facilitate timely facilitation. In the absence of essential contingencies, the aforesaid effective crisis  planning and response is not materialized on field. 

Insufficient cooperation between  the local security services and the peacekeepers is yet another challenge for the  mission. The community needs confidence building, and the presence of troops and  their interaction with the communities. Public information operations are extremely  important. The UNO does offer a public information system in each mission such as  UN radio that has the potential to be effectively utilized. However, this avenue has  failed to achieve optimal advantage. Training is primarily the task of Troops  Contributing Countries (TCCs) and the International Monitoring Teams (IMTs)  involved in the mission; mostly unaware of contextual realities and challenges  including how the TCCs will respond to various changing scenarios.

Lastly, police  contributing countries have presumed that police Units do not have a role in protection of civilians.  This dichotomy needs to be resolved in order to avoid the internal conflicts. 

SOLUTIONS TO THE CHALLENGES FACED IN PROTECTING CIVILIANS DURING ARMED CONFLICTS 

First and foremost ,there needs to be an effective communication system  between the UN, TCC and the deployed mission. Clarification of the peace keeping  task at tactical level needs to facilitate and speed up decision making on the ground. 

It  must be noted that protection of civilians is not merely a military function, it is also a mandate that  include UN humanitarian agencies, international and local NGOs etc. Improvement  of working relationship and coordination with the humanitarian entities is hence,  essential. This dichotomy remains as a result of the misconception at the end of UN  agencies and NGOs presuming that if they work in cooperation with UN troops, they  would be conceived as a party to the conflict. In this regard, battalions must review  the assigned ‘Areas of Responsibility (AoR)’,and determine the sphere of protection of civilians tasks  in view of the available resources. In case if the protection of civilians task cannot be operationalized, the concerned authorities must inform the chain of command, prepare contingency  plans (including reaction time for each situation and scenarios).

Strengthen the enforcement of IHL by raising awareness, engaging combatants, and enhancing accountability mechanisms. Increase diplomatic efforts to promote political solutions and peaceful negotiations, which would ultimately reduce civilian exposure to armed conflict. Prioritize the provision of adequate funding and resources to humanitarian organizations, enabling them to effectively respond to the needs of civilian populations affected by conflicts are also some of the solutions to the challenges faced in protecting civilians in armed conflicts.

In addition, they must  establish an early warning system in the areas of responsibility in order to coordinate with UN entities,  host country security services and local communities. Two significant aspects of peacekeeping can be drawn from the debated above. The  first identifies the current gaps in several missions between the resources and  mandates. Secondly, every peacekeeper (civilian, military and police)must utilize all  the resources and capacities to protect the civilians. It is also important to consider  that the political powers and their influence can sometimes overshadow the role of  military. In brief, the UN’s legitimacy is challenged when civilians are at risk and it  continues to be the measure of mission success. Indeed, progress has been made in developing guidance and training materials, and operational concepts for joint  protection teams. However, increasingly dangerous environments require  peacekeepers to be proactive and decisive. Static postures are no longer sufficient nor  enough to protect the civilians. 

Therefore, it is essential for peace keeping to provide  proactive strategies that require a change in the mindset among all those who form  peacekeeping partnerships (troops, police contributors, UN Security Council) There  must be a consensus regarding the adoption of a forward leaning posture. Peace  keeping missions need to respond to threats to civilians at tactical, operation and  strategic levels. This approach requires mobility, and rapid reaction with new  capabilities, modified equipment, accommodation and new technology. Force  multipliers enabling capacities are central to these efforts. An example in translation  of what has been explained above is the new name given to the infantry battalions as  the ‘Rapid Mobilization Battalions (RMBs)’which could move and deploy wherever  they are required. In South Sudan, the mission rapidly erected protection of civilians sites under tough  circumstances, as an example (Global R2P, 2018). 

Similarly in Mali, peacekeepers  patrolled the streets and helped repair roads and schools (Ladsous, 2014).In the DRC,  the deployment of the Force Intervention Brigade has expanded the reach of the  mission to protect vulnerable civilians (UNSC, 2013). However, such practices need  to continue to ensure that peacekeeping missions carry on innovating and reforming.  Protection of civilians is all about expectations, and unless peacekeepers meet the expectations of the  local population, they will always be accounted for any undesirable circumstance. With the advent of globalization, there has been a sharp increase in the  transnational, regional and international organizations. With its global reach and  impact, media now plays an important role in highlighting the violations of human rights. They have also showed a great influence in devising the public policy and  implementing the international laws. It has been observed that during the armed  conflicts, the NGOs primarily become voices of the victims. They highlightthe  violations particularly in the international humanitarian perspective. 

In addition, the  NGO sector exerts pressure on the and also seek vigorous response from the  international community. In fact, when all the other layers of protection fail, the  domestic civil society comes into force as the main actor. They do not only comprised of the local organizations but also include the extensive network of religious societies,  charities, independent activists, trade unions and human right activists. 

CONCLUSION 

The protection of civilians in armed conflict is a shared responsibility that requires the commitment of states, international organizations, and non-state actors. Strengthening the implementation of international legal frameworks, enhancing compliance, and promoting accountability are essential for achieving comprehensive protection for civilians in times of war. Only through sustained efforts can we truly alleviate the suffering of innocent individuals caught in the crossfire, paving the way for a more humane and just world.

This essay illustrates the slow process of evolution with regards to protection of civilians during the  wars and conflicts internationally. The possible cohesion between the international  military and peacekeepers along with the humanitarian actors and organizations not  only offers numerous opportunities. Howler these opportunities are accompanied by a  set of diverse challenges. Initially protection of civilians was considered as the task of the human right  organizations to protect the rights of the civilians during the conflicts. However, with  the increasing role of UN in resolving international conflicts and its peacebuilding  efforts, it has been emphasized that the military responsible to protect the civilians  entrapped in the conflict zones. 

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