Heffes: Non-State Actors Engaging Non-State Actors: The Experience of Geneva Call in NIACs

Ezequiel Heffes has posted Non-State Actors Engaging Non-State Actors: The Experience of Geneva Call in NIACs (in International Humanitarian Law and Non-State Actors: Debates, Law and Practice, Ezequiel Heffes, Marcos D. Kotlik & Manuel J. Ventura eds., forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

Despite the existence of humanitarian rules binding upon armed non-state actors (ANSAs) in armed conflict, ensuring their respect still remains an important challenge. When dealing with ANSAs, this can be linked to several factors, such as their lack of knowledge of the law, the absence of an incentive to abide by the applicable rules, their fragmented structure, their lack of a centralized command authority and a lack of capacity to implement international humanitarian law (IHL). Certain humanitarian organizations have attempted to tackle these difficulties by recognizing that engaging with ANSAs is essential in order to enhance the protection of civilians in conflict situations. This chapter aims at presenting the methodology employed by Geneva Call, an international non-governmental organization, when trying to persuade ANSAs to respect humanitarian norms. The following pages will provide an overview of this process, describing Geneva Call’s approach and discussing some of its achievements and challenges, in particular in the context of its child protection program.