 It's a pleasure to welcome you all at the Humanitarium. Welcome to the 40 experts who came from all over the world to discuss the history of humane principles. Because this event this evening is the public segment of a two-day conference on the history of the fundamental principles of the Red Cross and Red Crescent. So we are very lucky to have here so many experts. And the discussion started this morning. It will continue tomorrow, but we thought that it was necessary to share all these lessons, all these expertise. And so we have also organized this public event in which we'll try to organize this meeting of our experts, of the discussions around the evolution of the principles in time, and the larger audience. So we are also very pleased to have in the room the members of the Assembly of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Welcome. And welcome to all of you who are following us here in the room or on the internet, because this event is live streamed. So welcome to all. As you know, this year marks the 50th anniversary of the adoption by the international movement of the Red Cross and Red Crescent of its seven fundamental principles. So they are quite well known. I think in the past event, one of our panelists said we are sitting here in the temple of the principles possibly, because, of course, the ACRC is well known for its purest approach to the humanitarian principles, to its fundamental principles. So we're talking about the principle of humanity, independence, impartiality, neutrality, also the principle of unity and universality, and voluntary service, which are the seven principles common to Red Cross, Red Crescent, national societies, the different components of the international movement of the Red Cross and Red Crescent. In the humanitarian sector at large, we speak about humanitarian principles when we refer to the four first ones, humanity, impartiality, independence, and neutrality. So this year marks this adoption, 50 years of their adoption. And this event, this evening, is the opportunity to look at the history. But going further in the past, we'll look back at the history of the humanitarian action and the evolution of its principles since the origins. This event is also part of a cycle of a series of conversations we've had in the past year around the principles, but this evening is especially devoted to history. And the next event in our cycle will take place in Vienna, where actually the seven principles were adopted. So beginning of October, there will be another conference to mark this anniversary. So in order to discuss this issue, we have this evening with us eminent practitioners. So first, I would like to welcome Jane Cawking, who is the humanitarian director at Oxfam UK. Welcome. And Peter Maurer, who is the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross. I won't give you all the details because you have on your seats the bios of our panelists. So I'll keep it to a minimum and won't tell you much more about their career. So you can have all the information on this leaflet. So this evening, they will have the opportunity to discuss this evolution of the humanitarian practice through the practice of the fundamental principles, the humanitarian principles at large. And we'll have chronological presentation. So we have invited three representatives of our conference to present the challenges that the humanitarian sector faced in different periods of time. So first, we'll have Professor Irene Hermann from the University of Geneva, who will speak about the early days. But actually, it's a very large period of time. I'm sorry we gave you such a long period. So it starts with the early ages of modern humanitarianism in the 1860s, up to the end of the Second World War. So quite a long period of time. Then, yeah, a few more words. Then we will discuss the challenges during this time. And then we'll give the floor to Professor Andrew Thompson. So now it's time that I thank particularly our partner, because this conference would not have been possible without our two main partners. And it's Andrew Thompson from the University of Exeter who came with this idea more than a year ago. And we are very enthusiastic to work on this project. So we'd like to thank you and thank the University of Exeter and the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council without whom we could not, without which we could not organize this event. So thank you very much, Andrew. So we'll discuss with Andrew the challenges of decolonization and Cold War. And then we'll reach the present time. And then we will give the floor to Mike Aronson, who will then present what we have called the age of liberal interventionism from the end of the Cold War up to 2005 and we'll open the discussion to the audience. Let me say a few words to set the scene for this conversation, because it's a very rich history and there are many, many dimensions we could discuss. And these issues have been discussed by the international sector at large for many years. So I would suggest to highlight two main dimensions in our conversation. And in order to guide you through the discussions, I try to follow these two dimensions. First, we will look at the principles as tools. Tools for humanitarian actors to navigate in very difficult environments, in crises, in conflicts. And tools to make difficult choices. So we look at them and we'll ask ourselves some questions related to the effectiveness of applying these principles. Does it work? Does it make a difference to people what are the best practices, what are the lessons learned in terms of application of the principles? And then the second dimension is to look at the principles as a catalyst of the identity of the humanitarian sector. Somehow the principles have defined the boundaries of the humanitarian sector, defining what is humanitarian, what is not. And sometimes we've had within the sector discussions on definitions, interpretations. We have also seen many interpretations across different cultures or religions. And we've seen the humanitarian sector evolve a lot. First, it brought the principles out of its own practice. And second, the principles once where they were formalized shaped the sector itself. And so we will look at this evolution and discuss also the identity dimension. So, thank you for your attention. And now I would like to give you the floor. Thank you, Professor Hermann. Welcome. Let's start this conversation. So what did you pick and what question would like to tackle? Maybe Jane or Peter would like to start. It is first. Okay. Well, thank you, Irene. That was the most extraordinary encapsulation of some of the greatest challenges that we face. I'd like to pick up on your first question. Is the history a burden or a blessing? And I think we have a choice. I genuinely do. Because we can either choose to embrace and to learn from history and to hold our identity or we can choose to grow from it. And speaking from Oxfam's point of view and this touches on your other question, your next question as well, about how we see neutrality, independence and so on. We do not have either the burden or the blessing of unlike the ICRC of being the custodians of the principles. And so we have a choice in terms of how we behave in a way which really embraces what we see the core principle for all of us as humanitarians being, which is humanity. And so from an Oxfam point of view, if I can put it this way, historically our origins in 1942 were not only as a group of people offering humanitarian assistance in Greece, but also challenging the underlying causes of the great famine of the winter of 1941 and 42, which my predecessors saw very clearly as being the Allied blockade of Greece. And in an act of either incredible boldness or abject treachery, you can take your choice, they chose to do both. And so that's the history that we come from. And so we're coming from a history almost of rejecting a principle at the same time as embracing the others. And so we pay tribute to Mrs. Agata when she was High Commissioner for Refugees, when she said I think very precisely, there are no humanitarian solutions to humanitarian problems. We would add to that there are only political solutions. And so in a world where crisis and a disaster are only expanding, we feel we have to really embrace what is going on and how we address that in the long term, not only in its manifestations. And so I lay that out as a rather controversial statement perhaps, but something to get us going. And Peter, I would love to know what you in a very different position feel about that. And if I can just push you even a little further to give you a concrete example to respond to as well as Erin's question. Where I sit, we all admire the ICRC enormously for many, many things. But one thing that my own chief executive has written about very recently was the way in which you embraced and championed campaign against land mines in the 1990s. And would you still do that? Because for us, that is a real challenge to how we embrace neutrality, but something that we would love to see you do more of. What do you think? Thanks a lot, Jane and Irene. Maybe just the line I would take on asset and burden is to say, well, it's destiny for us history. And I would share your view, Jane, that we have to embrace history and to see what it tells us. What I was told by Irene in the last five minutes is basically that principles did not fell from heaven as prefixed product produced somewhere, but it has been an evolution of an organization responding to real problems. The real problem of acceptance, the real problem of having access, the real problems of intercultural understandings from the different contexts in which we were active. And so I think your encapsulation from the principle is a good reminder that those principles are not prefixed. And what I can learn from that kind of history and in embracing history of the ICRC with regard to the principles is basically that you have to reconstitute the consensus around the principles and the meaning of the principles and you have to redefine it in each and every context and each and every period in which you are active. And this is what our past tells us at the end of the day. It's not an ideological fixed product or a well thought through product which is fixed, but it is rather a sort of task to future generations to each and every situation, context and period to reflect what do the principle tell us with regard to our actions, activities, challenges, dilemmas with which we are confronted. And I think this is a way of looking at history which allows us to embrace history and to look at how did we do it in the past? What, in how far were the principles useful in order to carve out a space for humanity? How did it support our operations? And I think it's an interesting history, the decades that you have summarized. I wouldn't contest, Jane, that there are no humanitarian solutions to humanitarian problems. I have said it many times in the recent past that there are only political solutions to humanitarian problems. And then the question is who is responsible for the one or for the other? And what is our role and burden sharing and what is our understanding as humanitarians and what is our task to advocate with politicians to drive the car of political institutions and projects and problems as we perceive them as humanitarians? So we don't think that when you say that there are only political problems to humanitarian issues, that necessarily we have to find the political solutions to the humanitarian problems. There are political institutions to find those solutions but I would not take a conservative line in a sense that therefore we have just to look at our garden of humanitarian action but I think we have a responsibility to bridge the gap between the experience and knowledge and the problems that we experience on the ground through our work and to bring it into the political arena. That is what we have done with landmines. That's what we do with nuclear weapons. That's what we do with a lot of other programs to move political agenda without debating them in the public space. That's the advantage of confidentiality and of the methodology. And then of course I come to Irene's dilemma of the genocide but here again I would agree with what you said. It's outside humanitarianism. And then the question is how do you bridge the gap when you know and politicians are asked to act? And I think we have said in the past and we have an event this year already here with regard to the 70 years of the liberation of the concentration camp that this was not good transmission of our field experience into political decision making what we have done in the Second World War because it would have been possible to advocate earlier in the way with what we knew. So the question on the lessons learned here is again it's not so much there is an area out there which is uncontestably far away from principled humanitarian action and it's out of the area of influence of any humanitarian actor. And then you have to so how do you bridge the gap now? What do you say in what format do you advocate for what you see? What do you recommend? And what are the channels of communication you find with the political decision makers? And this is a big issue. You know that I have advocated strongly and for a more proactive humanitarian diplomacy of this organization in order to be better in a position to more broadly communicate and to use transmittance of basic field experience to political decision making. And maybe just to perhaps conclude because I imagine you might like to move on to come back to the first question you posed about burden or blessing. I think one of the things I have found most energizing about the very open discussion of the principles today has been the consensus that unless we are really wrestling with the principles and unless we are almost crashing up against them in our day to day work, then we are not, we're not using them as our forebears intended them to be, but also we are not pushing ourselves enough as humanitarians to really make sure that we can be the best we can be. I think to come to you Irene's third point, I'm quite enthusiastic about the concept of fluidity. Recognizing that those principles are not well defined and taking it as a task to continuously try to shape consensus around the concrete meaning in concrete contexts in order to inform action. That is where we are. We can just preach principles, preaching principles and defining them is not producing any result. It's basically a task to each and every generation, each and every context and each and every situation not to overestimate the definitional character of principles, but to take it as a task to create consensus on the concrete meaning. That's what we try to do in Syria, in Yemen, in many other contexts in which it is very difficult to unfold principled humanitarian action today. Thank you. We may come back to the political dimensions of the negotiations around the ban of land mines because I see we've been joined by Cornelius Omaruga who was president of the AICRC at the time of the Ottawa Treaty. So thank you for coming to our events regularly. But before that, I suggest we now give the floor to Andrew Thumson who will then give us the same broad picture of the periods starting at the end of the Second World War, the decolonisation and Cold War. Thank you, Andrew. Yes, so I've been asked to deal with the period of decolonisation and the Cold War. In the decades after the Second World War, humanitarian very much developed at the intersection of three geopolitical forces, decolonisation and the Cold War, but also new forms of globalisation. Decolonisation was about much more than the ending of colonial relationships. What was at stake was the dismantling of an entire global order. An old world of imperial states was replaced by a new world of nation states and that in turn ushered in new patterns of cultural, political and economic relations. In the existential struggle that was the Cold War, the control of overseas territory mattered intensely to each side's sense of security and power. Capitalists West and Socialist East competed to convince nearly and newly independent African and Asian states to adopt their models of humanitarian and development aid. And as a result, it became more difficult to distinguish between aid given according to state interests and that given according to recipient needs. Globalisation meanwhile expanded the range of voices that the humanitarians had to listen to, but it also radically differentiated them. Aid agencies intensified their use of the international media and as a result of that, they were exposed to greater pressures from the donor states and donor publics. So those three geopolitical forces, decolonisation, the Cold War and globalisation, raised far-reaching questions about the relationship of international organisations and NGOs to state power, about the basis upon which humanitarian needs were identified and prioritised, and about the interaction of humanitarians with non-state armed groups. And in the midst of this period, as humanitarianism reorientated itself away from a war on Europe towards the global south, the significance of the fundamental principles was magnified. They were formally adopted, as Van Sena said, at the 20th International Conference of the Red Cross in Vienna in 1965 as a statement of the movement's ethics and values as well as its purpose and goals. I think various challengers arose out of this new geopolitical environment. Humanitarians were faced with many situations for which they were ill-prepared and in which they therefore had to improvise. New types of armed struggle involved Europe's colonial powers, fighting an array of non-state armed groups. Unconventional and asymmetric forms of warfare placed a premium on establishing authority and control over civilian populations and devolved and decolonisation's wars often revolved as much, indeed, around the territory, control of people as the control of territory. Distinctions between competence and non-competence were blurred in the midst of violent struggles to reorder the human landscape. And in many cases, these late colonial and post-colonial conflicts were hydro-headed. They were entangled with superpower rivalries. And as a result, the very term humanitarianism was to be used in a much more inflationary way. There are intense arguments about what types of victims should be brought within its ambit. Should, for example, the rules governing the treatment of POWs extend to members of anti-colonial, revolutionary and liberation movements, even if they didn't wear uniforms and lived as civilians when they weren't engaged in military operations? Should those fleeing colonial and Cold War conflicts be treated as refugees, even if they might once have been fighters and indeed become fighters again? Should assistance be provided to militarised refugee camps if it meant helping those taking part in armed activity in their own country? Should those detained by their own states under emergency legislation be distinguished from those convicted of ordinary criminal offences? In many ways, I think the fundamental principles in this post-war period provided a way of framing a debate about what kinds of help and support humanitarians could legitimately provide, in which situations they could provide it and to whom they could provide it. And new brands of humanitarian action also emerged, including the expansion, of course, of the Red Cross, Red Crescent movement, but also the growth of NGOs in the global South. The previous social contract of humanitarian action, whereby Western states and Western international organisations and NGOs came together to agree the basis of humanitarian policy and practice, began to fall apart. I'd like to venture that there were perhaps three possible insights that we might draw from this period. The first is that the crafting of compromise is integral rather than antithetical to a principled approach. During decolonisation, constraints were a constant. They couldn't be evaded. So the real challenge for humanitarians wasn't to avoid any form of compromise with state authority, but to work out when compromise descended into collusion. Humanitarian principles express lofty ideals, but were they also operationally relevant? Did they provide a basis for taping difficult decisions about how to limit cooperation with state and non-state armed groups to that that was really necessary for humanitarian purposes? Secondly, I think fidelity to any form of humanitarian principles was always predicated on an understanding of the political frameworks and processes into which humanitarians had to insert themselves. During this period, Red Cross and other aid workers frequently found themselves embedded in conflicts in which their principled weapon was perhaps not just their perceived neutrality or impartiality, but their ability to interpret events. And seeing the bigger picture, of course, wasn't always easy from the field, but a failure to do so prevented humanitarians from grasping the likely consequences of their actions. And thirdly, I think the fundamental principle was played a pivotal role in securing acceptance of types of humanitarian assistance that were poorly provided for in terms of international law. Non-international armed conflict was the most prevalent form of conflict during decolonization and the Cold War. And Jean Piquet spoke forcefully at the time of the danger of a humanitarian's no man's land emerging. I think that was particularly true for political detainees. A quiet revolution in the visiting of political detainees nonetheless occurred after 1945, and it relied heavily on the principles of independence, neutrality, and impartiality for its justification. Without the fundamental principles, it's far from clear to me the ICRC could have pursued the protection of political detainees as determinedly as it did. I think that shows how humanitarian principles can at times at least provide a basis or grounding for humanitarian action when legal instruments don't necessarily provide everything that's required. So are there any parallels with that situation today? Well, this above all was a period of what was called at the time revolutionary encounter insurgency warfare. In many ways, not entirely unlike that we've witnessed more recently in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. So the questions I want to leave the panel with as follows. Firstly, and perhaps most obviously, how many humanitarian principles help to counter the instrumentalization and indeed hyper-politicization of aid for foreign policy or other interests? In crisis situations where state parties to conflict, non-state armed groups, and sometimes even aid workers are intensively politicized, what scope is there for a principal humanitarian approach? Europe's colonial powers and Cold War powers were certainly not averse to presenting their own actions in counter insurgencies in humanitarian terms. And that was especially true of policies of force resettlement or relocation, which were driven by security considerations but claimed to protect innocent civilians. Can humanitarian principles help staff in the field to navigate the moral hazards that present themselves in such situations? And finally and perhaps most importantly, the categorization of conflict and the naming of violence were as important during this post-war period as they have been in more recent conflicts. Europe's colonial powers labeled insurgents as terrorists to render them less human or sub-human and even perhaps to place them beyond a humanitarian pale. What role can the principles play in mobilizing the empathy and solidarity necessary to prevent some victims being seen as more deserving, others as less deserving and some perhaps not deserving at all? Is it humanity that's the most essential and inspirational principle of all the principles, the most fundamental of all the fundamental principles, the one with the greatest capacity to counter violently opposed interests that characterize so-called wars on terror? If so, what do we do when understandings of humanity are distorted or perverted as they were during this post-war period by those who link the concept of humanity to hierarchies of civilization and to a deeply damaging belief that racial principles could be a cornerstone of the social and political order? In essence, what happens when a sense of shared humanity is distinctly lacking? To see how both of you, Professor Ermann and Andrew Thompson, you managed to capture all these issues and it was a difficult task to go fast forward throughout more than a century of history of human interaction, so thank you very much. And indeed, many elements that you said, armed groups, mostly non-international conflicts, counter-insurgency, I mean, sound very familiar. So I'm sure we can draw lots of parallels to what we see today. So who would like to take the questions of Andrew Thompson? Andrew, I would also recognize a lot of present in your description of the past, in a sense that what we probably witness over time is that warfare is never a period for particular tolerance and has never been. And instrumentalization of whatever actors of society is elementary to warfare, but what we have seen is that the sort of all-encompassing warfare, the outreach and instrumentalization of each and every part of society, including humanitarian action and activity, has been almost an unbroken trend in the 20th century and up till now. If we look at 19th and beginning of 20th century, warfare is left spaces which did not touch civilians or did not touch certain areas of societies. I would say the quality of communicative skills of statecraft, of military development, of technological development has made conflicts increasingly totalitarian, and humanitarians have been part of the trend of being instrumentalized in conflict. This is very clear. One of the indicators for us is that the whole issue of Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions and talking about parties to conflict is today and has been over decades already a contested article. While it is in law and we reference to it, we have continuously the sort of suspicion that at the end of the day we are legitimizing, while the Article 3 said without prejudice to recognition. I think the sort of more totalitarian warfare, instrumentalization of humanitarian crystallizes for us around the legitimacy or not to engage with everybody and all sides, which again is absolutely crucial to create a humanitarian space ruled by humanitarian principles. If there is no space, there is no space for principles. If there is not in terms of ideology and concept, at least the recognition that on the other side there are humans as well, there is no space for humanity. And so conceptually we are concerned that we see this trend reinforced. And then of course what do you do? And here I would strike a slightly more optimistic tone. What surprises me over the decades at ICRC is the relentless ability to negotiate that space, even if conceptually it's not offered and given. And I think that is what we have done over the last 70 years. In particularly non-international armed conflict, not to accept that there is no space. And then try to engage as good as we can. And the principles have been terribly useful to offer a space of legitimacy at the end of the day, have given us a basis of effective humanitarian assistance which has found some recognition on both sides, or on all sides of the front line because there are not anymore two sides only, on all sides of front lines. And therefore the principles have been absolutely crucial to create the space for which they were designed for. And I think I would say that this situation continues to today. We need to create each and every time and each and every situation the space where principles can basically be implemented, can be concretized, and this is what ICRC delegates do in the field, negotiate the operational arrangements to allow us a minimal space of humanity. Complicated, increasingly complicated, but possible. Otherwise we wouldn't be here. And I always tie this to the sort of tongue-in-cheek to our budget. We have increased our budget by 50% in the last three years because a bonanza of instrumentalization in international conflicts. But this is at the same time a recognition that we are able to deliver mutually, partially and independent humanitarian action and to negotiate a space for it. I agree with most of what you've said, Peter, but I'm going to answer Andrew's question as well as I can, but then end by posing one back to you, which is in answer to your first question. The language that the principles give us is a language that means, of course, if we are speaking principle ease, then we are in the territory of compromise and negotiation. Otherwise we could just write it down and say, right, this is it. Are you going to buy into this? If the answer is anything other than a rousing yes, please, then that is the end of the conversation. So by definition, principles have to be that tool by which we negotiate space. And reflecting back on the history that you gave us, as I look back into the history of my own organization and many like it, I think there's no doubt we came through a period which was during the one you've described, where the idea of solidarity with particular movements was one of the core ways of working. And still it's fascinating to listen. We have an annual event where we reflect on history and invite all sorts of people to come. And it's fascinating to hear people talk about the period you gave us, what they are proud of and what they are not. And essentially the work that Oxfam was doing in South Africa under apartheid, which was very low-key and cross-border, is some of the core of the organization's soul still. But it's in the territory of solidarity rather than principled humanitarian action. Would we do that again? Some of my older predecessors on an annual basis lambast me that we wouldn't. I explain why we wouldn't do it in that way, which takes us back into much more the territory that you're talking about, Peter, which is the use of principles as that creator of space so that common humanity can be recognized and where possible flourish. But my question, and it's a genuine question, it's not a question that I know the answer to at all. But what do you do when you are speaking a language which despite your very best efforts, at least one group or party with whom you are aiming to speak, simply do not embrace that. Simply you cannot find that chink to actually keep that conversation going. Basically what you do is try another way. I mean, there is no much alternative at the end of the day. Then when you fail on one way, you try another. And if it's not possible to remain credibly consistent in operational arrangement to negotiate spaces, you don't do it. And I recognize that these are difficult choices. I mean, we had many of those difficult choices in the last couple of years in the Syrian context. What do you do when you are not able to negotiate an evacuation agreement for people caught in between frontlines and if you don't have the assurance that when they come out of besieged areas, they are treated humanely. If you are caught in that situation and you don't have a satisfactory agreement, you don't conclude the agreement. But then what do you do when the government calls you up the next morning and say, care for those people who came out? It's important dilemma. You can't really have a clear cut and uncontextual response to the question. All responses have to be contextual and have to ponder. The advantage of engagement and the advantage of operational arrangements to deliver humanitarian assistance and protection work compared to the disadvantage of moving away from what your ideal is. And that's what we do each and every day. And then you have to take a decision at the end of the day whether this is the best possible deal you can have at the present moment and enter into it or not enter into it and risk that certain humanitarian activities are not able to perform in the circumstances you are. You come to the limits of where you are and then political action is asked. And all I suppose I would add from our perspective being in a very different position to that of ICRC delegates is this is where we would again come back to our menu of options of which campaigning, advocacy and influencing is one of them. And on some very rare occasions we would take a decision to pull back from that direct action and invest in other means of addressing the crisis. We agree on influencing. That's what we both do. We may disagree on when exactly the campaigning part comes to fruition in particular in concrete circumstances because then we would ponder the advantage of campaign against the disadvantage of losing operational surface and agreements that we have. That's the classical dilemma in which we are. But of course it is also true. I mean the closer you are around front lines and conflicts and people and perpetrators of violence the more you are trapped with regard to those difficult dilemmas which you are confronted. And here of course comes my plea for complementarity. Not everybody has to do the same thing. There are those who are very close and we have committed to be an organization really committed to proximity. Proximity to conflict as close as possible as ever we can to victims and perpetrators. And this limits other domains of possible political action like big advocacy campaign in concrete contexts because then you have to ponder your operational surface towards the campaign. But I mean we should be very strategic and relaxed. Others can do other conset priorities different. The important thing is, and here I would make a plea to humanitarian. Sometimes I have the impression that we are fighting over these complementarities as warring parties fight over territory. People and resources and that's not an intelligent way to pass our times as humanitarians. I think each and every one of us has a different mix on operational priorities and how to deliver on the ground and how to deliver humanitarian assistance and we don't need necessarily to come to exactly the same hierarchy of problems, of approaches, of principles in each and every case. Thank you. So I suggest that we give the floor to Mike Aronson. So we are moving towards the present. So Mike is also very well known in Geneva because you've been a founder member of the Center for Humanity and Dialogue. And now your fellow in the Department of Politics at the University of Surrey. So welcome Mike. Thank you very much. Thank you all. It's a great pleasure to be with you. Although I sort of feel it's all been said really and maybe the lesson of that is it doesn't really matter which historical period you're talking about. Fundamentally the issues are the same. So I think I could paraphrase what I wanted to say which has already been said. Very simply by saying it's the humanity stupid. Really this is what it's all about. It is about is there a shared sense of humanity without which humanitarian action cannot be effective without which the legitimacy of those of us trying to carry it out is called into question. And that rests on a consensus that is actually not the responsibility of organisations like ours although the ICRC obviously does have a particular responsibility. It's actually a responsibility of everybody. So here we are sitting debating the humanitarian principles which are absolutely splendid and from a purely personal point of view have been my guiding light throughout my professional life and I have absolutely no doubt of their value and their importance but actually the real problems are somewhere else. So that was where I was going to conclude but I suppose I'd better just say a few other things just to be fair to my period of history although I think we've sort of leapt into the future and come back to the past and re-covering the period let's say from the end of the Cold War to about 2005. And I'm speaking more as a practitioner than as an academic. I'm speaking to somebody who spent 20 years of his career working for Save the Children UK which I left in 2005. So I think that period actually was a very challenging period for humanitarianism. I think the two main things were the impact of the end of the Cold War the fact that the political space, especially in Africa was no longer contested in the same way by the superpowers which just opened up a lot of other forces and created a new set of problems which we perhaps were not as well prepared and in particular this concept that many of you will be familiar with of complex emergencies which are really a combination of natural and man-made causes and where actually the solution, as Mrs Ogata said can only be political so that was her point. But what happened a lot was that humanitarian action was actually used as a proxy for political action and so aid agencies found themselves struggling to try to be effective in the absence of an effective political engagement and there are many examples which I won't go into. Also as one of our papers tomorrow I should say that I'm speaking about two panels that haven't yet taken place yet but this is tomorrow's meeting. But as one of our papers for tomorrow refers rather elegantly to the confluence of hegemonic power and humanitarian aid. So in other words, if this was a unipolar moment at the end of the Cold War it was unipolar from a humanitarian point of view as well as a political point of view. So it was the West that was doing things and the second major element I think was this growing doctrine of so-called humanitarian intervention and I make no apologies for calling it so-called because I think it's a very misleading term. I'm very critical of academics and practitioners and particularly politicians who use it uncritically. I think its use has been very damaging but of course what it was referring to was coercive essentially military intervention for an ostensibly or perhaps more kindly partially humanitarian purpose. But of course it only happened in those places where the West's interests were threatened or where there was a major humanitarian crisis on our doorstep so we saw interventions in northern Iraq, Bosnia, Kosovo or occasionally where there was a rather naive belief in the efficacy of military action but sometimes it worked. It worked in Sierra Leone and sometimes it failed. It failed disastrously in Somalia and of course in parallel there was lack of action of any kind with regard to some of the biggest humanitarian disasters of our era most notably the genocide in Rwanda and to a certain extent that led to a positive development with the development of the International Commission State Sovereignty's report on the responsibility to protect and new fresh attempts to try to find ways of justifying intervention for humanitarian purposes. But then of course we had the disaster of 9-11 and the changing of the paradigm and what I would regard as the subsequent twin tragedies for humanitarianism of Afghanistan followed by Iraq which led to an increasing blurring of the boundaries I think even more than in the colonial period that Andrew was talking about an increasing blurring of the boundaries between the political, the military and the humanitarian and indeed that blurring was encouraged by some politicians most notably Tony Blair who at the time of the invasion of Afghanistan talked about this we have a humanitarian coalition and saw us all pulling together all working to deliver the same outcome and then again rather unforgettably Colin Powell paying tribute to American NGOs saying how grateful he was to them they are our force multipliers they will allow us to increase our impact So this was making it increasingly difficult for us international NGOs other humanitarian organisations to be seen as neutral and independent and I would like to say that during this difficult time I think we've all looked to the ICRC as the beacon and that's really the only fixed point that one can hope will be able to stand firm and be the guardian of the principles and what we hold dear but of course even the ICRC was affected often with tragic consequences by these swirling currents I just want to touch briefly on how did the international NGO community respond to this and this will lead into some questions for Jane and for Peter I mean again three main trends perhaps first what was labelled again I'm not sure how helpfully the new humanitarianism in other words a more consequentialist approach to intervention maybe attenuating what might have been an uninhibited humanitarian response by thinking more about some of the consequences secondly a drive towards greater professionalism and accountability the NGO Red Cross Code of Conduct the Sphere Project Accountability Project and things like that but then the third one which is the one I want to come back to which is to a certain extent to pulling up of the drawbridge by so called humanitarians and in fact again a couple of papers tomorrow we have one one refers to humanitarian exceptionalism and the other refers to the self-identification of aid providing entities you know we define the territory we say we are the humanitarians you are not you can't do certain things we can and I think that's a very dangerous approach which I will say which I will come back to in posing my question so I have four questions and then I have a big fifth question which you've already answered twice so I'll still ask it for the third time the four questions are firstly what damage did this bundling this progressive bundling by western political leaders during the 90s and 2000s of humanitarian, political and military objectives due to the integrity and legitimacy of humanitarian action has this caused permanent damage to our cause or to the concept of neutral independent humanitarian action or can the lost ground be recovered so that's my first question now for the second question again you know have so called humanitarian actors damage their own cause by insisting on their own exclusive right to carry out humanitarian action and in fact if you think about it conceptually there are no humanitarian actors there are only humanitarian actions you know a humanitarian is defined by a particular kind of action and a soldier can be a humanitarian in fact a soldier is required to be a humanitarian by international humanitarian law anyone can be a humanitarian it's not sort of chasse réservé for people like us so actually insisting on the obligation on everybody to be a humanitarian I would argue is more it's a better strategy than insisting on my right to be a humanitarian and not yours so are we missing something is there a scope for a different kind of coalition if you like a different kind of coalition of humanitarian which goes more widely than traditionally then the professionalization and the drive for greater accountability has it actually helped it led to some quite difficult ideological disagreements in the international NGO world with some organizations saying they didn't like this development they thought it did diverted from the basic principle of humanity and those differences to a certain extent are still around so has it helped or not is that part of the future or is it something we should revisit and finally has the traditional so called humanitarian community which has it sufficiently understood the need to embrace other actors from different geographies and traditions if the legitimacy of humanitarian action is to be maintained are we still too much of a close knit club of the usual suspects have we really managed to reach out and embrace the other actors from different geographies, different traditions that we need to so those were my four questions and then as I was thinking about these questions then all of this which is that you can't you can't put the humanitarian principles on a pedestal, I think to sort of stick them up there and admire them and polish them occasionally and think isn't it wonderful that we've got them is very counterproductive and as Peter said before look you know they are there as a guide they are really important but you have to take them you have to look at how you're going to use them in any particular context and the point is you can't look at them in isolation the legitimacy of humanitarian action rests on a consensus that it is morally desirable and that it should be supportive and if that consensus is not present talk of the principles is actually irrelevant you can't have lofty discussions about how can you operationalize the principles if you don't have a consensus in global society about the importance of the principle of humanity so just as trustworthiness is a necessary condition for trust you can't achieve it by imposing more regulatory controls on people so they'll be more trusted so respect for humanity is a necessary condition for the practice of humanitarianism and that's a political agenda I think the tragedy in Syria exemplifies it very well it took the Security Council three and a half years to pass a resolution that remotely referred to humanitarian principles it founded on all sorts of failed political resolutions it didn't once focus on the humanitarian dimension really and on the ground of course the lack of more or less complete lack of respect for human rights is all too apparent so it's still the case that Mrs Agata is still right and it's still the case that humanitarian action cannot be a substitute for political action so the final question really is is this a singular moment or can we be at all optimistic about the future you sort of answered it already Peter but I'd love to hear you on it again thank you Mike please join us Andrew you can join us as well so now we'd like to answer to this and very briefly so that we can then ask for questions from the audience thank you well I am not a political historian but I find Mike's first question about whether or not the search for an ideology in the early 1990s has permanently damaged humanitarianism fascinating not least because I spent the majority of my professional life during the 1990s somewhere either in Somalia or the Balkans and I think from that perspective if no other the answer is probably yes and I think that still informs a great deal of our search and our elucidation of humanitarianism now and the direct link across to the absence of trust is as striking now as I recall it being in Somalia in 1993 or whenever at all really kicked off there and that's deeply deeply depressing but is there is there hope well I think I would agree with you that the pulling up of the humanitarian drawbridge the sort of this is us and this is sacrosanct because principled humanitarian action is good humanitarian action and anything else doesn't work I think was a a defensive reflex but a very understandable one and to I'm trying to answer all these questions very quickly in one sentence can anybody carry out a humanitarian action or do you have to have some specialness to be a humanitarian actor as an individual yes that is our common humanity isn't it but does the perception of that alter the nature of the gesture yes it also does you know I recall having conversations in Afghanistan in 2002-2003 with the British army where they were sending out people in civilian clothes and unmarked land cruisers and just saying you know these very well meaning sort of we are here on a political humanitarian agenda you can't be we please put your uniforms back on and do everybody a favour so I think that's that's the answer on that one the cause for optimism I think we have an opportunity I really do because if we can be strong enough to let go and to allow new initiatives like the core humanitarian standard which I would not sure what the ICRC's perspective is on that exactly but it is an opportunity to take the sector forward in a way that is empowering and not exclusive but I think it's going to take a lot of brave letting go from many of us to enable that to happen in the next 10 years as time is short it's obvious that the blurring of the borders is an enormous problem and remains an enormous problem is it reversible I don't know nothing in history is really reversible but history takes surprising turns so let's see what kind of terms but I think today it's one of the big issues that we are coping with and it leads us also to be more scrupulous in defending neutral and impartial humanitarian action as distinct from development human rights peacekeeping and other transformational agendas which are highly political and to see how we manage donor expectations at the same time for more integrated coherent hooked up humanitarian action with other areas of political and donor activity so it's a challenge to manage but I am convinced that only in sort of remaining clearly distinct and separate from political action that we can reconstitute consensus around humanitarian action which is lacking in many parts of the world at the present moment so one or two steps back may be important in terms of what exactly humanitarianism is and I would agree Mike that humanitarians are responsible by as well by extending the definition of what humanitarian is and attaching aspirational and transformational agenda which never in the history of humanitarianism have really been part of core humanitarian action the second point with regards to the professionalism I would just like to give an example which underlines the interesting thought you have done that each and every one for us is a humanitarian and this is not reserved to the profession I found it very interesting over the last couple of days to see that in a small European country not to name here on the web 13,500 people have declared themselves voluntary to take a refugee home while the government has said and the humanitarian professionals have said that the maximum of 50 would be acceptable in the country so the reality is that in today's world of connectivity we see a new form of humanitarianism emerge where individuals are empowered and that's the positive news. I mean we all know about the negative part of atomization, fragmentation and desintegration of our societies but the positive part is that it has a history of empowerment and the empowerment touches humanitarianism as well and then of course I praise a movement which I very often in my day to day life criticize but I think the Red Cross and Red Crescent movement at the end of the day is an interesting embodiment of professionalism and volunteerism and in that sense prefigures may be a new form of humanitarianism which is much broader than just professional and organizational. Well thank you thank you Mike for the questions you raised and they managed to answer all your questions so that was quite an achievement so now I'd like to take a few questions so please just one question per person please and you can announce who you are and please don't make too long comments as we like to give the opportunity to have as many questions as possible so I see this lady here and then yes sir it's on, actually you can speak and then it will work. My question goes back to the conversation about creating humanitarian space and so how do you argue for principles of humanity when there is ingrained cultural dehumanization of the other working and does this I think this transcends all the different time periods and I think it's an issue that practically on the ground humanitarian actors face every day. Thank you and you can also tell us who you would like to ask a question to also and if there are questions on the historical periods that we have covered of course our five panelists can answer. I think it was anyone you're all very well versed so I think it's open to anyone. All right thank you. So gentlemen here Yes I have a question for Mr. Mr. President a part of being the president of the ICRC you are a board member of the World Economic Forum which by the way claims to be neutral, impartial and independent let some of the world's major arms industries a member of your organization World Economic Forum among others British aerospace systems look at Martin's cooperation do you consider in regard of the fundamental principles it is consistent for you to held these two positions simultaneously do you think it is damaging don't you think it is damaging for the ICRC and for its operational capacity what do you consider a new partnership Thank you. Thank you so we have another question here Yes it's an improvised question just for not having regrets tomorrow that I didn't raise it my name is Boris Engelsen I am a local freelance journalist some people on earth bet on the worth to come Jacques Attali for instance I think very much that war is unavoidable even in Europe and it will be very bloody so it is not your role to speak the same as Jacques Attali but don't you think do you think that the humanitarian rhetoric contribute to being ready even if the worst comes or prevent politicians and other decision makers to even confront these kind of scenarios you so I think now I'm turning to you would like to take the first question I didn't mind taking the first question I mean the first question I think is a very fair question and I think it illustrates actually Peter's point about being clear about the distinction between humanitarian action and those longer term transformational agendas the reality is there are some environments where you simply cannot operate in the way you would like to because that fundamental respect is not there so you have to tackle that in a different way and actually in a way that's what development is all about and that's what that's what agencies do but they're not in humanitarian mode they're in sort of longer time developmental mode I think you can do a lot by stealth incidentally I think I'm familiar with lots of environments which look very very unpromising but if you were subtle about it and if you were patient and actually if you relied on dare I say people's basic humanity which very often transcended their ideology might you were sometimes surprised by the results and just how much you could achieve Thank you Peter would like to reply on the question by Thierry Jaan I think in today's world of multi-stakeholder decision making a humanitarian organization has to define its interface with the others and the others are other humanitarians are private is the private sector is the united nations is intergovernmental organizations is societies NGOs and everybody knows that for principled humanitarianism this is a delicate issue how you shape your relationship with the others I think in a connected world managing dependency the best way of ensuring independence that's what we can realistically do and managing those dependencies realistically is what we do so I think it is of critical importance to talk to all stakeholders of conflicts I think there are 100 reasons to engage with the private sector on a platform where the private sector meets certainly I think this is compatible to us and as much as we talk to all parties to conflict it's good to talk to all parties which may fuel conflict or may make a contribution to de-escalate conflict so it's of the essence of this organization to all those who have any form of influence on the relevance and conflicts in which we are either positive or negative and it is our task to engage with all of them and then it's a question of opportunity on where you decide and how exactly you shape that relationship but if it were not compatible in our view and the view of the assembly of the ICRC I would not be in the board of the WEF Thank you, would like to take the third question which is actually about the very existence of the humanitarian sector in fact Yes, Jane? Can I have a first go? Does the language of humanitarianism allow the rhetoric of the worst case scenario to flourish more than it does? I doubt it to be honest because that humanitarian message is never don't worry we've got it covered it is it needs to be delivered in absolutely the right way in a way which taps into that common humanity around the potential humanitarian consequences of particular actions or in some cases lack of action but I think this is something that the humanitarian community has struggled with for at least the last couple of decades which is how to really express that humanitarian voice in the context of both geopolitical and economic arguments when I say economic I'm thinking of the impact of climate change and what have you So I feel very happy to be challenged if you feel that it is actually leaving space for people who would put other actions forward but personally I'm sadly very sadly skeptical Thank you I suggest we take a few more questions so there is one there here Mr Morillon is there anyone there Hi my name is Matthew Hilton from the University of Birmingham I have a question about humanity and its meaning sorry I hassled Mike over this dinner last night it seems to me that everybody keeps going back to this notion of humanity there is this fundamental thing that exists beyond all of the other principles and I just wonder whether it's used as a comforting word to hide and mask over some rather troubling preconceptions we might have in our own approaches as to the meaning of humanity So I think Andrew raised an absolutely fascinating example which I'm not sure was really addressed and that's he described a situation at the moment of decolonisation where imperial powers made very deliberate decisions to pass the definition of humanity according to race we then have a very good example of why Oxfam is proud of itself for denying that attempt to separate two groups within humanity and is rightly proud of some of the work it did in South Africa what I'm kind of really stunned by is that when you say in the organisation today what would they do in such a situation there is a debate why is there a debate why would anybody want to separate into two distinct groups humanity along racial lines so it gets back to this more general point about the meaning of humanity and what other preconceptions we might bring to it and are we using it to comfort ourselves that we have an underlying principle perhaps we need to challenge what we mean by that when we categorise it in other ways for instance gender or religion thank you so there is a question here thank you it's not really a question it's an endeavour to draw a positive conclusion from this debate which may be your own but it certainly is mine I have always pleaded to make a difference between the principle of humanity which is embodied in humanitarian action and the three other main principles I leave out smaller principles of say namely neutrality impartiality and independence stressing the fact that indeed it is humanity which is the fundamental principle and that the other three are just tools to be used or even possibly not used at times in order to reach that objective and I have been very struck by the fact that there seems to be creating a certain consensus amongst you to focus on the importance of the principle of humanity and on endeavouring to make it truly universal Andrew Thomas conclusion said humanity is the paramount principle Peter Maurer answered the other side is also human need to create the space for recognition of the principle of humanity he didn't say of the principles he said of the principle of humanity so Michael gave a short answer it's the humanity stupid it's the economy stupid you remember that many years ago so basically I think that there is a strong consensus on the importance of insisting on the universalization or endeavouring to make universal the principle of humanity and leaving the other principles at their proper level which is one or two spaces below namely tools in order to reach that objective I think we have a dialogue on this principle of humanity starting in the room Cornelius Omaruga thank you very much good evening everybody I am Cornelius Omaruga and was almost 13 years president of the ICSE I would like not to enter into philosophy but just say some points as to the way in which I approached my mission taking into account the fundamental principles and I must somewhat contradict to my friend Jacques Morellon that just spoke when he said there is one fundamental principle and the others independence neutrality impartiality coming afterwards it would have been impossible for me to act as president of the ICSE if I would not have always shown strong adherence to independence particularly independence neutrality and also impartiality and this fact of independence went so far that I was invited several times to participate in certain Grimia and I always refused I didn't go to the assembly of the ICSE to ask if I could do that because anyhow the assembly was always rather weak and would not have dared to say to the president do not do such a thing but indeed I even resigned the day when I was appointed as ICSE president resigned from a board of a family foundation in order to be completely independent when speaking about independence my second point is the question of national societies that have to follow all these principles as it is said in the movement statutes and this was a fight a continuous fight of all kind of national societies the confusion that being the I don't remember the term but helping public services and keeping the independence was a certain contradiction but this contradiction brought very often national societies to lose their not only independence but also their neutrality and this was one of my major points each time I had somebody to talk with in high positions of national societies I had to recall the importance of independence but not only to them but also to the governments because the governments have also adhered to the fundamental principles of the Red Cross Red Cross third point landmines I think that my friend Peter Maurer said something important about the proximity that Red Cross delegate and I would say also the president has to have and the landmines problem has been for me a tremendous shock because of the proximity to the victims and to delegates giving assistance to these victims and I tried first to push the ICSE to engage strongly in one movement of the United Nations in the CCW frame but because of the rule of unanimity taken by the Disarmament Conference there was never the possibility to go up to the total ban of landmines and this is why at a certain moment I took my independence my independence was also in respect of many of my fellow collaborators in the ICSE that didn't like my push of the total ban and I made this Proclamation 94 asking for a total ban our doctors our nurses were very satisfied our lawyers thought that this was not really the task of the president of the ICSE but what it was my fundamental point first humanity the principle of humanity we told me you have to act because you have to see what happens in the world and secondly international humanitarian law protocol additional number one the Firmus provision I don't remember the number of the article of Cyrus serious injuries and unnecessary suffering that one should prevent that should also prevent and be developed in this sense and I thought it was my responsibility to go out and I had a fantastic instrument what was more efficient than the one of the ICBL of Johnny Williams I had the whole movement of the Red Cross and Retrescent that had to follow us I hope so that we have a lot of independence with some national societies of big powers that didn't dare to say that one should follow the total ban but I am happy that finally the ICSE was probably the main element of reaching the Ottawa Convention on the total ban but I don't know who comments or reply I can maybe on the basis of some of the questions which were asked now a little bit sharpen and differentiate what one or two points again I think this meeting and the papers and the discussion this evening has shown that each and every period of history is the most important one and is relevant to solve some of the problems with which the organisation is confronted having said that Jack I would agree with you that in terms of the character of what the four mean the principle of humanity has another dimension than the three others it doesn't mean that the three others are not perfectly valuable but they are really important in certain circumstances but the reason why we are somehow expressing ourselves this way is that there is a genuine concern of the humanitarian community and it's different expression here that we are basically at the brink of a sinkhole and that spaces are shrinking and that consensus around what humanity means are to be reconstituted as we have a highly diversified and atomised world in which we are dealing and conflict environment which we are dealing and there I would go to the first question of course the importance of such a meeting and such also a historical perspective is to recognise all the biases which have taken place in the past in interpreting the principles of the humanitarian principles and the fundamental principles that we are discussing this evening and then also to see what are the communalities today which are behind the principle of humanity and here again I would just end with a notion of optimism when I look on our engagement parties to conflict hugely separated at the end of the day they know that detainees have to be treated humanely and not tortured they know that women children and soldiers out of combat deserve special protection they know that illegal weapons must not be used they know that there is a principle of distinction between civilians and militaries and what is known which is in support of a space of humanity and in that sense I have certainly not given up and I think it is important to learn from the biases but at the same time also to explore, explicit make it clearer what the meaning of the principle is and I would agree that in today's situation the principle of humanity in my sense a higher priority of significance than the other principles which are more instrumental but as important for me the second one would be impartiality today because of what I have described beforehand impartiality is at stake as much as humanity at the present moment we are running out of time but I would like to give you the opportunity to conclude remarks so maybe each of you could take a minute but first Andrew Yes, I would like to try and respond to the first question which is about fundamental principles and whether they can transcend cultural differences and to connect that with Matthew Hilton's question about the relationship between fundamental principles and racism under decolonisation and I would like to try and respond to his answer which is to actually compare what happened in the 1960s and 70s to international law and to the fundamental principles so I think there was a substantive debate over international law once those nearly and newly independent African and Asian states had had self-determination recognised as a human right in the UN to make the language of human rights into economic justice and development aid the next target was the additional protocols and to have wars against colonialist racist and alien regimes recognised as international armed conflict I don't think the fundamental principles were different I don't think there was an attempt by the non-aligned movement to affect a substantive revision you might say the substantive revision or the effort to make one came from an entirely different quarter in 1961 before the Vienna Conference when the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc states tried unsuccessfully to have peacekeeping and disarmament included in the fundamental principles for me the issue for the fundamental principles for nearly and newly independent African and Asian states was a rhetoric and a reality issue and if you look at the experience of national societies in Africa and Asia that were part of either the French Empire the Portuguese Empire the British Empire or the Belgian Empire the real problem was the criticism from liberation was that actually platitudes were mouthed towards the fundamental principles there was a rhetoric but that rhetoric was completely belied by the reality of how those societies actually behaved and what they did and the fact that they were didn't behave at all in a neutral impartial or independent way thank you Andrew Jane would like to conclude maybe what answer to the question what lessons you draw from history or what lessons that you draw from this discussion at least and I will also in so doing answer the Oxfam point as well because I clearly didn't make it clearly the value of the fundamental principles as a language but an evolving framework for the increasing levels of humanitarian crisis and humanitarian need I don't think has ever been more important and I think that critical need to continue wrestling and evolving within the fundamental principles is absolutely crucial how we actually express those and how we find new but effective ways of demonstrating that I think is the real challenge and what I'm saying about Oxfam in South Africa is absolutely fundamentally not that we have let go of humanity not at all but faced with similar challenges and we are everywhere and I very proud of a lot of our work on that we would simply do it in a different way that the solidarity of the 60s and 70s is not the most effective way in the current environment and so it's that evolution within the framework is what I take away thank you Jane, thank you now we would like to add to this discussion and conclude Professor Ayaman would like to maybe I would like to stress three points that were inspired by this discussion at the conference as a whole the first one was inspired by Peter Mauer who told us that in order to be effective principles shouldn't be dogmatic but pragmatic I think it's very nice to hear and the second one is inspired by Jane Cawking and it was very pleasant for me as a historian to hear that you can choose a past that is a burden or a past that is a blessing and I hope that this conference will help us to see the past as a blessing or as a source of inspiration and the third point is inspired by the fact that you organize this conference because in my opinion principles not only reflect the evolution of warfare or victimhood but also reflect all the world of the people who are enunciating these principles so why are we now today reflecting on these principles I guess it's a big question thank you Mike? Well I'd like to say one more thing about humanity in response to Matthew's question the reason I think it's important to assert that principle is that it is threatened we live in an age under threat, we live in an age let me remind you of turkey shoots we live in an age of bug splats we live in an age of targeted killings as a weapon of war and I think it's all too easy to slip into a mode where we do not value all human life equally and therefore the principle of humanity is fundamental for me I can't separate it from the principle of impartiality I have to say I think the two are completely interconnected but my final point is maybe if you wanted to do something really radical it might be worth re-examining whether it's really the most efficacious to have all those principles in the same basket as they are as they have been since 65 because for me there is a hierarchy they serve a different purpose again language is interesting for me it's more about values and principles you know principles are how you things that you try to they're more operational they're how we do things that we really believe in and I think it maybe it's worth putting some effort into trying to be very very clear about the fundamental values that are immutable and you know without which we would not be here at all and some principles that will vary over time so things like you know unity and universality I mean I can understand why they're important in a red cross context they're not quite in the same league I think as some of the other principles actually if you wanted to be really brave just see whether a bit of reordering in the basket would be helpful and would help to assert this fundamental principle of humanity more efficaciously and I just say one sentence in a sense that of what Mike said we are organizing the week after next in New York a side event at the opening of the General Assembly at the UN under the title reuniting around the principle of humanity just it's not as brave as you may expect but it's as brave as it gets thank you thank you very much so that was the final word thank you all our conference on history continues tomorrow with the 40 experts who came for this presentation on our next public events here on this leaflet but before the next event and before the conference tomorrow we invite you to join us for refreshments upstairs in the restaurant of the ACRC some colleagues will show you the way so thank you all and good evening bravo thank you