York’s Glendon campus hosted the third-annual International Humanitarian Law Conference focusing on terrorism, organized by Svetlana Ageeva of Red Cross.
The event was aimed at raising awareness about international humanitarian law.
“It is a Red Cross mandate to disseminate information about international humanitarian law in Canada and all over the world,” says Ageeva.
Ageeva hopes to educate participants about the importance of compliance with international humanitarian law.
The conference was a year and a half in the making.
While the event was focused on international humanitarian law, the panel was balanced with legal experts, researchers, political scientists, academics, and armed forces members.
Ageeva states the goal of the conference is to empower participants by providing a diversity of perspectives.
Andrew Carswell, delegate to the Armed Forces International Committee of the Red Cross , discussed the utility of labeling individuals as terrorists and whether the term discourages conflict resolution.
Compliance was discussed from the perspective of non-state and armed groups and regular forces.
“With non-state armed groups we look at what is their motivation to abide by humanitarian laws when they are fighting against the state,” says Carswell.
“You’re going to be held accountable in any event as a criminal. So what is your motivation if you know you’re going to be spending the rest of your life in jail – or worse?”
“You’re going to be held accountable in any event as a criminal. So what is your motivation if you know you’re going to be spending the rest of your life in jail – or worse? What we’re trying to do is to figure how do you set the framework to create that motivation,” adds Carswell.
“With state armed forces we’ve seen different interpretations on the laws of armed conflict. Human rights groups [say] you have to apply the law enforcement standard in all cases.”
Carswell says there is in law something reflecting terrorist acts, but calling an individual or a group of individuals terrorists denies these individuals the possibility they might change.
“Terrorism can have an effect on the debate that is entirely not productive, whether the state is referring to a whole group of individuals who are party to an armed conflicts as terrorists [or not],” he adds.
One point of tension is with civilians and when use of lethal force is allowed and how states define undue risk to their military personnel.
“In certain situations, there may be threats that you can’t use lethal force against and a law enforcement frame should apply. Get them off the battlefield and prosecute them without using lethal force,” says Carswell.
A lack of a single arbitrator makes it more difficult to enforce treaties like the Geneva Conventions consistently across the board with all nations.
“International law does not have the kind of teeth that domestic law does,” says Carswell.
“What the Geneva Conventions have done is they have set the standard. There is no perfect system. We’ve set a standard and a stigma and there might be repercussions in your country, but you can’t stop a state from violating the law.”
However, making the Geneva Conventions part of a country’s domestic law is a good way to address this challenge.
Carswell cites Canada’s Geneva Conventions Act as an example of embedding international humanitarian law in domestic legal codes.
“In Canada, for example, we have a Geneva Conventions Act which is domesticated as required by the Geneva Conventions. So if a Canadian soldier were to violate it, it would not simply be violation of the code of service discipline, but it would be a war crime under the Geneva Conventions Act,” he says.
Carswell claims there is no evidence that violations are more frequent than they were 10, 15, or 100 years ago.
“Ultimately, you need to have states finding political solutions to armed conflicts. In Syria, you need the international community to apply pressure in such a way that it resolves the issue,” he says.
“We can work on the symptoms of armed conflict, but the question is who address the source of armed conflict.”
Munirul-Haq Raza, contributor
