All posts tagged: uk government

Global resurgence of siege warfare traps civilian populations on the frontline – new report

Read CEASEFIRE’s latest report on siege warfare here

A resurgence across world regions of the tactics of siege warfare has trapped civilian populations at the frontlines of today’s battles, finds a new report by the Ceasefire Centre for Civilian Rights. From Mariupol and other cities in Ukraine, to Mosul, Aleppo and other cities in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Ethiopia and the Philippines, militaries around the world have imposed sieges leading to tens of thousands of civilian casualties and massive destruction to civilian infrastructure.

‘Protecting civilians in siege warfare: Constraints on military action’, by Professor Stuart Casey-Maslen, analyses the limits imposed by international humanitarian law (IHL) and human rights law on the conduct of sieges, and the role of the UK and other governments, armed forces, NATO, the UN, humanitarian actors and the civilian population itself in avoiding or minimising civilian harm.

‘The law of the Geneva Conventions requires both attacking and defending forces to take all feasible precautions to protect the civilian population, but in a siege civilians are trapped in the battlespace,’ said Ceasefire’s Executive Director Mark Lattimer. ‘Their treatment under siege is unbearable – and frequently unlawful.’

In addition to banning attacks that target civilians, indiscriminate attacks, and the terrorizing of the civilian population – all of which are war crimes if done intentionally – IHL prohibits the starvation of the civilian population as a method of warfare and places an obligation on parties to conflict to allow humanitarian relief, including the provision of food and water, medical assistance and the evacuation of casualties and other vulnerable civilians. Evacuation should always be voluntary and both those evacuated and those left behind continue to benefit from the right to protection.

Analysing the conduct of recent sieges, including those of Aleppo in Syria and Mosul in Iraq, the report details how the laying of siege by militaries with very different approaches to the implementation of IHL can similarly result in civilian harm on a massive scale.

Russian attacks on cities in Ukraine have seen numerous reports of IHL violations, such as the targeting of civilian objects, including educational and medical facilities, indiscriminate artillery shelling and the use of cluster munitions in or near residential areas. In an unprecedented move, 41 states including the UK referred the situation in Ukraine to the International Criminal Court and a war crimes investigation has been opened.

The current style of warfare favoured by the UK and other NATO members, owing much to US doctrine, is based on stand-off, long-distance precision strikes, delivered on an industrial scale. While there may be benefits in terms of force protection, the extensive destruction that results can also be catastrophic for civilians trapped under siege.

‘Public revulsion at the treatment of civilians in cities under siege in Ukraine should spark urgent reflection in militaries around the world,’ added Mr Lattimer. ‘Their playbook may be different, but the end result is disturbingly familiar – mass civilian casualties and widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure.’

Despite its devastating effect on civilians in recent years, siege warfare and its particular challenges are not mentioned once in the 2020 NATO Protection of Civilians Handbook – nor in the UK’s Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy published in 2021.

Ceasefire’s report calls on the UK and other governments to:

  • Review legal guidance and military doctrine to ensure that IHL protections are being fully implemented in situations of siege
  • Improve pre-attack proportionality assessment procedures, including removing the assumption that where civilians are not visible they are not present, and incorporating an estimation of the reverberating effects on civilians
  • As part of current intergovernmental negotiations on a Political Declaration on the use of explosive weapons in populated areas, commit to avoiding the use of explosive weapons with wide-area effects in towns and cities, in particular where civilians are trapped under siege.

 

For further information or interviews, please email contact@ceasefire.org.

ceasefireGlobal resurgence of siege warfare traps civilian populations on the frontline – new report
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The Human Rights Act and Reparations for Civilian Harm: Explained

Read our submission to the consultation on reforming the Human Rights Act here.

The Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA) is a piece of legislation which incorporates the rights contained in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) into domestic UK law. It enables individuals to defend their rights in UK courts, as well as in Strasbourg, and requires public organisations to respect and promote human rights. The HRA contains 16 key rights, including the right to life, right to liberty, and the right to be free from discrimination.

What is the Human Rights Act?

The Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA) is a piece of legislation which aims to incorporate the rights contained in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) into domestic British law. It enables individuals to defend their rights in UK courts, as well as in Strasbourg, and requires public organisations to respect and promote human rights. The HRA contains 16 key rights, including the right to life, right to liberty, and the right to be free from discrimination.

What is the government’s consultation on reform of the HRA?

Successive governments have signalled that they wish to reform the HRA. For example, the Conservatives promised to replace the HRA with a ‘British Bill of Rights’ in their 2015 manifesto, although this did not come to fruition in that parliament.

The current government set up an independent panel, called the Independent Human Rights Act Review (IHRAR), in December 2020, to examine how the HRA works 20 years after its creation.

In December 2021, the government published the IHRAR’s report. At the same time, it announced plans to ‘overhaul’ the HRA and replace it with a new Bill of Rights.  It published a paper outlining this proposal in five main areas:

  1. Respecting common law traditions and strengthening the role of the UK Supreme Court
  2. Restoring a sharper focus on protecting fundamental rights
  3. Preventing the incremental expansion of rights without democratic oversight
  4. Introducing responsibilities within the human rights framework
  5. Facilitating dialogue with Strasbourg, while guaranteeing Parliament and the devolved legislatures their proper roles.

The consultation closed on 8 March 2022. The government will publish a report summarising the responses to the consultation and conduct an impact assessment checking how any reforms would impact different groups of people. It will then have to decide if it does indeed want to reform the Human Rights Act and will propose a bill if so.

The government’s plans have been widely decried by human rights organisations including Liberty, The British Institute of Human Rights, and Amnesty International.

What does ‘extraterritorial jurisdiction’ mean in relation to the HRA?

A contentious and difficult issue for both the HRA and ECHR has been the question of whether and in what circumstances the Convention applies to acts carried out in a foreign State, including during armed conflict.

Multiple court cases have confirmed that human rights do indeed apply in certain cases in overseas military operations. For example, when a State party exercises control over a foreign territory or when if it exercises authority over an individual. However, there is still significant debate about which specific circumstances apply.

It is the extraterritorial jurisdiction of the HRA which has allowed some civilians who have been harmed during UK military operations to claim reparations. While there are other legal avenues for individuals to pursue, many of these claims have been brought under the HRA. For more information on this, see CEASEFIRE’s latest report on reparations for civilian harm from UK military operations.

What does the consultation document say about extraterritorial jurisdiction?

Last year, the parliament passed the Overseas Operations Act 2021, albeit in significantly amended form. As part of the legislation, the government had initially proposed imposing a duty on the secretary of state to consider derogating from the ECHR in relation to ‘significant’ overseas operations. While this component of the bill was dropped, the Overseas Operations Act did introduce a new six-year limitation period or ‘longstop’ on claims made under the HRA. The legislation drew criticism from across a broad range of experts. For example, Michael Clarke, former Director General of Royal United Services Institute, argued that the proposals ‘fly in the face of international legal norms’ and former senior military figures and the Law Society lined up to add their criticism.

The government’s consultation paper includes one main section on the extraterritorial jurisdiction of the HRA (pp.277-281). The paper argues that while the HRA and ECHR have created ‘uncertainty’ for members of the armed forces engaging in overseas operations, there is ‘no domestic legislative solution’ to this issue, as it may create a ‘gap’ between the ECHR and domestic legislation.

Instead, the paper adopts the recommendation from the IHRAR panel, which is that the Government raise the issue with other State Parties to the Convention in the hopes of amending the ECHR to limit its applicability in overseas military operations.

What does CEASEFIRE say about this proposal?

The proposals in the consultation paper pose a troubling risk to the rights of civilians in conflict.

Firstly, the proposed approach would be difficult to achieve in practice. Even when there has been widespread recognition of the need for reform within the Convention system and diplomatic will to achieve it, the process of reforming the Convention has usually involved multiple inter-governmental conferences. However, there is no recognised need for this reform. Leaving aside the technical difficulty of the subject matter, such a protocol may also be perceived as an attempt to weaken accountability for abuses by the military forces of powerful States. Given that the most prominent likely supporter of such a protocol, other than the UK, would be the Russian Federation, its promotion in the current circumstances would be politically untenable.

Furthermore, CEASEFIRE’s view is that this should not even be attempted by the government. The HRA has provided civilians with an important mechanism to get some compensation for harm caused by the UK’s military operations, as outlined in our latest report.

Rather than trying to change the application of the law to military operations, the government should take alternative approaches to address underlying problems which lead applicants to use the ECHR/HRA system in the first place.

CEASEFIRE makes the following recommendations to the government:

  1. Improve enforcement of International Humanitarian Law in military operations
  2. Offer alternative, independent and effective forums for complaints to be addressed
  3. Conduct prompt, effective independent and impartial investigations where problems arise in theatre and improve investigation methods
  4. The UK should seek complementary application of International Humanitarian Law and International Human Rights Law during military operations, as this is consistent with the UK’s other legal obligations and international legal practice.

Read our submission to the consultation on reforming the HRA here.

Read our report on reparations for civilian harm from UK military operations here.

 

ceasefireThe Human Rights Act and Reparations for Civilian Harm: Explained
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