“Humanitarian Protection”

Protection is about monitoring and enforcing the respect of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights Law, for the sake of individual’s safety and fundamental rights. Assistance and protection are the two indivisible pillars of humanitarian action. While assistance normally attracts the attention of the media and the political establishment, and is more easily understood by the public opinion, Protection has been for long time neglected by most humanitarian agencies and underfinanced by International donors. But the increasing complexity of disasters has produced a dramatic escalation of human rights abuses and mass killings in humanitarian crises, targeting vulnerable groups, minorities, and unprotected individuals. At the same time as the War on Terror has revived the problem of the treatment of war prisoners, the use of torture and the legal terms of detention.
Protection is today the most important challenge for the humanitarian community and aid workers.

Lectures:

1. Principles of protection and IHL
2. The Protection egg
3. Protecting civilian lives in the midst of conflicts
4. Vulnerable groups
5. Integrating protection in humanitarian assessment
6. Protection during displacement
7. Torture and ill treatment. Mental Health and PTSD
8. War Prisoners: the case of Guantanamo
9. Human Trafficking
10. Minorities and indigenous groups