By Federico Borello, CIVIC’s Executive Director Twenty years ago this month, on March 20, 2003, the United States launched its first airstrikes on Iraq. This marked the start of the US-led coalition’s invasion of Iraq and the long descent into the abyss for millions of Iraqis. This was also the start of our story. Center…
By Jasmine Phillips, Danique Kerkhof, Paul Wamp, Chris Knobloch In 2022, CIVIC partnered with the Institute of Security and Global Affairs at Leiden University to examine contemporary challenges in the protection of civilians. Bachelors degree students in the integrated security studies project course divided into teams, and developed policy briefs for a range of institutional…
By Elizabeth Yoder From demands for reparations from Russia for civilian harm in Ukraine, to calls for reparations for Britain’s legacy of slavery after the death of Queen Elizabeth II, concepts like reparations and compensation have made recent headlines. This article explores what international law has to say about reparations, with a focus on accountability…
As the war in Ukraine drags on, we continue to witness abuses against civilians and entire cities being razed to the ground. Elsewhere too, civilians are being slaughtered and starved with complete impunity such as in northern Ethiopia,or killed during security operations in Mali.Today, one-quarter of the world’s population lives in a conflict zone as…
CIVIC started in 2003 when its founder Marla Ruzicka began going door to door in Iraq advocating for civilians that had been harmed during the conflict. Marla was killed in 2005 in an explosion in Baghdad, but her mission to protect and help civilians lives on today. In May 2019, Dropbox followed CIVIC team members…
Anders Fogh Rassmussen recently wrote: “The European Union regularly argues that its foreign policy is based on values, not just on short-term interests. If this is the case, we should stand up for these values.”1Hong Kong showed China is a threat to democracy. Now Europe must defend Taiwan, The Guardian, July 16, 2019, available at:…
The following video is one piece in a collection on our VOICES blog focused on the gendered experience in conflict and how gender differences should factor into the protection of civilians. Men, women, boys, and girls experience conflict differently. Despite this fact, talk of “protection of civilians” too often refers to “civilians” in a gender-blind way rather…
This week marks the 70th anniversary of the 1949 Geneva Conventions. On the anniversary of this series of world-changing meetings, we invite you to pause with us and reflect on where the world stands 70 years later. To say that the transformative – and growing – set of agreements that emerged from the Conventions “matter”…
By: Dan Mahanty and Rita Siemion The Pentagon’s latest annual report on civilian casualties, released this morning, lists shockingly low numbers of reported casualties that the Department of Defense has assessed as “credible,” reflecting a need for better processes for determining how many civilians the United States is killing. While the report contains some improvements in reporting standards…