Photo credit: Oxfam International, “Oxfam loads emergency supplies to be sent to Syria,” (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).
This event was live-streamed online; a video of the event will be made available on the HPG / ODI Web site. The paper launched at the event is available here. The audio of the event is available here.
Summary of the event from the HPG / ODI Web site:
Date and Time:
6 November 2014, 14:00 - 16:00 (GMT+00 / London time) (10 am - noon Eastern/Boston)
Chair:
Sara Pantuliano - Director, Humanitarian Policy Group
Speakers:
Naz K. Modirzadeh - Director, Harvard Law School Program on International Law and Armed Conflict (via video-link)
Dustin Lewis - Senior Researcher, Harvard Law School Program on International Law and Armed Conflict (via video-link)
Tom Keatinge - Associate Fellow, Royal United Services Institute
Abdurahman Sharif - Operations Manager, Muslim Charities Forum
Do aid workers risk violating counter-terrorism laws to reach people who need humanitarian support?
Over the past two decades, states and inter-governmental bodies have adopted increasingly robust counter-terrorism laws and policies. At the same time, humanitarian crises in countries like Somalia, Mali and Syria have reaffirmed the continued importance of principled humanitarian action.
Counter-terrorism laws and humanitarian action share several goals, including the prevention of attacks against civilians and of the diversion of aid to armed actors. Yet tensions between these two areas of law and policy have emerged in recent years, resulting in challenges for governments and humanitarian actors.
This event launches Network Paper 79, Counter-terrorism laws and regulations: what aid agencies need to know, published by the Humanitarian Practice Network with the Counter-terrorism and Humanitarian Engagement Project at the Harvard Law School (part of the Program on International Law and Armed Conflict). Speakers will present key findings from the paper, engage the audience in an exercise which will address key challenges that anti-terrorism laws and regulations pose for humanitarian action and explore how humanitarian actors might respond to these challenges.
Refreshments are available from 16:00.
Follow #counterterrorism on Twitter for live coverage.