civil protection Backgrounder22.pdfVIP

Nonviolent Peaceforce, Rue van Elewyck 35, 1050 Brussels, Belgium, tel: +32 2 648 0076 International Conference Nonviolent Civilian Protection: Building the Global Capacity An initiative of Nonviolent Peaceforce Nairobi, 25-26 September 2007 Nonviolent Peaceforce, Rue van Elewyck 35, 1050 Brussels, Belgium, 2 Nonviolent Civilian Protection: Building the Global Capacity 1. Introduction: the need for advancing nonviolent civilian protection Throughout the world violent conflicts are targeting the most vulnerable individuals, often resulting in humanitarian crises and reversing the success of development efforts of several decades. As UN publications recognize in documenting crises like Darfur, Uganda, and Sri Lanka, individuals living within conflict zones need far more than material aid1. The resulting need for Human Security can be referred as the “freedom for individuals from basic insecurities caused by gross human rights violations” (A Human Security Doctrine for Europe, 2004, Executive Summary). Within the more than three dozen armed conflicts throughout the world where more than 90% of the victims are civilians, the underlying causes of conflict are chiefly political, economic and social instability2. Civilians are often threatened by the very institutions that are set up to protect them. The United Nations and other international agencies and national governments are increasingly focusing on non-military methods to protect human welfare and rebuild civil society. They are more and more embracing a policy of “Human Security focusing on the protection of individuals versus a more State- oriented concept of security. As Professor Mary Kaldor, convenor of the Study Group on European Security Capabilities, argues, this expanded notion of human security asks “not whether the international community should intervene in situations of severe insecurity, but how”.3 In this co