Practising Humanity Amid Changing Conflict

This year marks the 70th anniversary of the Geneva Conventions. The Conventions and their protocols form the core of international humanitarian law and preserve common humanity in the midst of conflict.

2019 also marks the 70th anniversary of the ANU Department of International Relations. Through our research we generate evidence for normative guidance and humanitarian capacity building at both local and global levels.

Join us for a conversation with International Committee of the Red Cross’ Head of Policy, Dr Hugo Slim, about what humanity means in practice to a world in flux and as the very nature of conflict evolves, followed by a Q&A panel.

In the lead-up to the 70th anniversary of the Geneva Conventions, discover why we would be worse off without these rules of war, why they remain fit for purpose, but also how the world can do better by them. Learn how the ICRC confronts new technologies like cyber and autonomous weapons and how it continues to build trust in humanitarian action even as war becomes more fractured, protracted, urban and deadly.

This unique colloquium will be a celebration of humanitarianism and bring together ICRC senior diplomats and some of the ANU Coral Bell School’s key thinkers to discuss the challenges of humanitarian action in the 21st Century.

The panel will be chaired by A/Prof Bina D’Costa (Coral Bell School), and will feature:

• Prof Toni Erskine (Director, Coral Bell School),
• Leonard Blazeby (Head of Mission in Australia, ICRC)
• Prof Edward Aspinall (Coral Bell School)
• Dr Cecilia Jacob (Coral Bell School)

Dr Hugo Slim is Head of Policy at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Geneva. Before joining ICRC in 2015, he was Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict (ELAC) at the University of Oxford. Hugo has combined a career between academia and practice. Between 1983 and 1994, Hugo worked for Save the Children and the United Nations in Morocco, Sudan, Ethiopia, the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Bangladesh. His most recent books are Humanitarian Ethics: A Guide to the Morality of Aid in War and Disaster (2015 Hurst/OUP) and Killing Civilians: Method, Madness and Morality in War (2007 Hurst/OUP).