PHAP: Learning sessions and webinars

Following an intensive initial review process, the first draft of the Sphere Standards 2018 edition is now open for comments and suggestions from practitioners around the world. To provide an opportunity to learn about the main improvements and how you can contribute to the process, PHAP hosted an online briefing session on 27 April. This was an opportunity to hear directly from the lead chapter a...

Throughout PHAP’s and ICVA’s series on humanitarian financing, speakers have referred to a process that promises to significantly reshape humanitarian funding – the “Grand Bargain”. This package of commitments to improve humanitarian financing was launched at the World Humanitarian Summit last year and aims to reduce the humanitarian funding gap and improve funding processes. Given the interest ex...

On 21 February, PHAP hosted an online learning session in its series on humanitarian law and policy with Cecilia Jimenez, recently appointed Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), and Jean-François Durieux. Protracted conflicts such as those in Syria, Iraq, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and elsewhere, often combined with natural disasters and...

Private funding of humanitarian work is changing – from having been primarily targeted at natural disaster response, in 2015, the response to the conflict in Syria received the majority of reported private funds. With most private funding channeled through non-governmental rather than governments or multi-lateral organizations, understanding current developments in private funding flows and mechan...

The Professional Standards for Protection Work were first established in 2009 in a process initiated and led by the ICRC. Following a first revision in 2013, they are now being updated again to reflect new developments in situations of armed conflict and other situations of violence, and the experiences of humanitarian and human rights organizations responding to these crises. The purpose of the s...

Understanding the legal bases for detention is important for those working in situations of armed conflict, even if they are not focusing on the issue in their work. However, while detention in international armed conflicts is regulated in detail under international humanitarian law (IHL), the situation in non-international armed conflicts (NIACs) is less clear. Knowing the basics of this topic an...

Pooled funds have enabled more timely and flexible funding for responding to sudden humanitarian crises, and have made it possible to operate in otherwise underfunded emergency settings. In the context of the World Humanitarian Summit, the UN Secretary-General (SG) recommended that member states and other donors should double the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) to $1 billion, with the Grand...

Funding agreements between implementing organizations and donors can significantly reduce transfer and administrative costs, but such direct funding relationships can also lead to challenges and additional burdens for NGOs. Different rules and processes between donors, pre-qualification requirements, delayed disbursements, and overly restrictive budget lines have long been common issues faced by N...

Guest expert: Bonnie Docherty, Lecturer on Law and Senior Clinical Instructor at Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic While some militaries have worked to reduce civilian casualties in armed conflict, greater attention should be paid to determinations of “hostile intent.” Troops have the right to fire in self-defense if someone demonstrates hostile intent, i.e., a “threat of immi...

In this PHAP Expert Legal Briefing, Naz Modirzadeh and Dustin Lewis, from the Harvard Law School Program on International Law in Armed Conflict, explored developments in technology, accountability, and international law pertaining to armed conflict. The background concern is that in war, as in so many areas, power and authority are increasingly expressed algorithmically. Advancements in artificial...

Guest expert: Jean-François Durieux The 1951 Refugee Convention was a major advance for the protection of people under persecution, defining the concept of refugees and the legal obligation of States to provide them with protection. However, the current system has been put under great stress by the scale and complexity of recent developments, which was the motivation for organizing the UN High-Lev...

UN agencies often partner with international and local NGOs to implement humanitarian assistance and protection. NGOs, on their part, are faced with the challenge of understanding and dealing with different, and often complex, UN partnership frameworks. Understanding how these frameworks function, and how humanitarian funding through the UN is evolving, was the topic of the second session of the l...

Guest expert: Kristin Hausler, BIICL Co-hosts: Noëlle Quénivet and Angharad Laing In addition to the loss of human life and creating severe humanitarian crises, the destruction of cultural heritage has played a prominent role in the ongoing conflicts in Syria and Iraq, and in the recent conflict in Mali. For example, this issue recently came into the spotlight in September 2015, when the Internati...

Humanitarian financing worldwide is changing – how does it impact NGOs active in humanitarian work? In the first learning session on demystifying humanitarian financing, organized jointly by ICVA and PHAP, experts from OECD, Development Initiatives, and World Vision gave presentations and answered questions regarding the current state of humanitarian financing and how recent trends are affecting N...

With Naz K. Modirzadeh and Dustin A. Lewis, Harvard Law School Program on International Law and Armed Conflict (PILAC) Thirteen of the sanctions regimes established by the U.N. Security Council could implicate key elements of principled humanitarian action. Those sanctions might affect humanitarian programming in numerous contexts, including the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of...

With Bruno Demeyere, Legal Adviser at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) For more info, go to https://phap.org/9jun2016 What do the 1949 Geneva Conventions say about the right of impartial humanitarian organizations to offer their services and about the way in which Parties to a conflict need to respond to such an offer? How has practice over the past 60 years in this area influen...

Following events focusing on the three other core principles, PHAP’s final discussion in this series spotlights the principle of independence, looking in particular at how it relates to how humanitarian action is funded. The principle of independence calls upon humanitarians to practice an autonomy vis-à-vis political, military, ideological, religious, or economic interests and pressures. It highl...

In its series of discussions on how the core humanitarian principles relate to some of the practical issues raised in the World Humanitarian Summit consultation process, on 1 October 2015, PHAP hosted session on the principle of neutrality. In conflict settings there is perhaps no more certain way for humanitarians to lose access than the perception of their having chosen sides. Paradoxically, neu...

This third event in PHAP's series on the core principles focuses on impartiality. If the principle of humanity drives humanitarians towards crisis to alleviate suffering, impartiality steers programmatic choices more directly. In fact, impartiality can be seen as carrying a triple function: creating an ethical prohibition against aid being given on a discriminatory basis; determining that operatio...

On 16 September 2015, PHAP hosted a live online consultation event on the draft Humanitarian UAV Code of Conduct and Related Guidelines, in collaboration with UAViators, UNOCHA and the World Humanitarian Summit. This event featured: - Presentations from Patrick Meier of UAViators and Brian Grogan of UNOCHA on the draft Humanitarian UAV Code of Conduct and Related Guidelines. - The possibility to h...

On 8 September, PHAP hosted the first of four discussion and consultation events on practical dilemmas of principled humanitarian action. The event began with a lecture on the topic by Dr Hugo Slim, Head of Policy at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). This was followed by a moderated discussion among a panel of experts, featuring Sir John Holmes, Director of the Ditchley Foundati...

In 2014, reports suggested that a surge of foreign jihadists were participating in armed conflicts in Syria, Iraq, and elsewhere. The U.N. Security Council responded by imposing new obligations on member states to counter the threat posed by “foreign terrorist fighters” (FTFs). In the intervening year, states have taken actions to implement those FTF obligations. Meanwhile, many states continue to...

The last fifteen years have witnessed a surge in armed conflicts involving designated terrorists. State responses to terrorism raise complex issues concerning international humanitarian law (IHL). Experts have debated legal and policy frameworks pertaining to the use of lethal force in counterterrorism operations, as well as the legal grounds to detain alleged wartime terrorists. Yet so far one vi...

On 8 October 2015, PHAP hosted an online briefing and discussion on the forthcoming study by the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) on principled humanitarian action in situations of armed conflict. The Norwegian Refugee Council, with the support of OFDA/USAID and Handicap International, have recently commissioned a research paper on “Principles and Pragmatism in Conflict Settings: Field Perspectives...