 Nous allons commencer dans 5 minutes. Pour ceux qui veulent s'approcher et s'occuper de l'eau dans les rôles frontales, ce sont les plus bienvenus. Mesdames et messieurs, mesdames et messieurs, c'est un plaisir pour moi de vous accueillir à l'Humanitarium pour cet événement de l'Ecosoc, un segment de l'Humanitarium. Le événement d'aujourd'hui est intitulé « Principles en Action, Comment la neutralité et l'indépendance contribuent à l'affectivité de l'Humanitarium ». Il est organisé par l'ICRC et l'International Federation de l'Église et de l'Église des Societies, et il a aussi été gardé sous l'embrelage de l'ICRC, une recherche et un débat sur les principes de l'action de l'Humanitarium. L'année 2015 est particulièrement importante pour notre mouvement d'affectivité et d'affectivité, car nous fédérons le 50e anniversaire de l'adoption des 7 principes frontales du mouvement. Ces principes frontales étaient officiellement adoptés en 1965 et ont été instrumentaux à la communauté de l'Humanitarium, qui a widespreadment exposé les premiers 4 principes de l'Humanité, l'importivité, la neutralité et l'indépendance comme les principes de l'action de l'Humanitarium. Ces principes n'étaient pourtant pas appuyés tout de suite en 1965. Ils se sont émergés d'un century de l'action de l'Humanitarium et de la réflexion, en commençant avec une vision et l'action d'un homme, Henry Junot, founder de l'ICRC, sur le battlefield de Solferino en 1859. Junot a été horrifié par la scale des carnages et des volontaires mobilisés sur les villages pour carenir pour tous les soldats, sans discrimination, et sans l'assistance qu'ils ont aussi. Junot's idea of non-discriminatory needs-based humanitarian assistance est encapsulée dans le principe d'impartialité et était ensuite entraînée dans l'Humanité international. L'Humanité et l'impartialité proviennent la ligne principale pour l'action de l'Humanité et sont essentielles en définissant la gestion de l'Humanité. Maintenant, pour la neutralité et l'indépendance, qui nous discutons aujourd'hui, ils ont été développés dans des décennies de vie dans des conflits et des catastrophes naturels. Pour l'ICRC et pour le mouvement de Red Cross et Red Crescent, ces deux principes opérationnels sont essentiels pour obtenir l'acceptance pour tous et pour obtenir l'accessibilité des populations dans certaines des conséquences les plus adverses. Aujourd'hui, plus que jamais, ces deux principes sont essentiels, dans notre vue, pour délivrer l'action de l'Humanité, c'est-à-dire que l'action de l'Humanité a été carried out in proximity to affected people relevant to their needs and timely. This firmly neutral and independent human approach is what enables the ICRC and its movement partners to be, more often than not, among the few human actors present on the modern battlefields in Ukraine, Syria, South Sudan, Yemen or Afghanistan. Afghanistan is a case in point in that respect. ICRC's town neutral and independent action was at times criticized. In the post-911 context, the prevalent discourse was that all actors should have joined up efforts to stabilize and reconstruct the country and win the heart and minds of the population. ICRC principled approach may have been a contrasting one, but it delivered. As a number of long-time observers of human action in Afghanistan have noted, the consistent application of these principles has enabled the ICRC to remain one of the few actors operating in some of the most contested areas of the country and, among other activity, to ferry sick and wounded people across front lines. This approach even benefited other actors. ICRC's acceptance and recognition as a neutral intermediary enabled it, for instance, to obtain safe passage for polio vaccination teams on behalf of the Ministry of Health and of the World Health Organization. This is our view and experience on these two principles, but we want to hear today from others whether neutrality and independence do contribute to humanitarian effectiveness in all circumstances and for all human actors or not. I will now turn to my colleague from the International Federation, Joëlle Tanguy, Undersecretary-General for Humanities and Values and Diplomacy, who will introduce our panelists and facilitate this discussion. Thank you for your attention. Thank you Jean-Christophe and thank you to ICRC for hosting us in this beautiful setting. I am pleased to serve as your moderator today for what we aimed or have designed as a rather interactive session. It will not be a standard panel presentation, but hopefully a dialogue. I have the honor of sitting here with three outstanding panelists to lead us through this discussion and in particular allow me to introduce His Excellency Jorge Lomónaco, the Ambassador and Permanent Representative of the Mexican Mission to the United Nations here. We also have with us our Secretary-General of the Lebanese Red Cross, Dr. George Quetane, and we also have the pleasure to have with us Professor Antonio Donini, who is a senior researcher at the Feinstein International Center at Tufts University in the United States as well as a research associate at the Graduate Institute in Geneva. And with these Auguste panelists and their interesting and hopefully contrasted views, we are hoping to have a conversation. I want to highlight that we want that conversation also with the audience because we know quite a few of you are actually also very active participants in the humanitarian community. We also have to thanks our colleagues from the United Nations who were kind enough to allow us to have this EcoSoc event actually located in the humanitarian humanitarian of the ICRC which allows us to actually livestream this event and therefore open the audience much more broadly together with you now are also 189 national societies of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement able to listen and participate. And this is all the more important because we are discussing a very dear subject to the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement but not only to the movement, to the whole humanitarian community. We are interested today with regards to consideration that let's say we'll start the conversation with some of the consideration that Jean-Christophe has given which is among the principle the humanitarian principles the principle of humanity and the principle of impartiality all there will be in the background of our conversation because they provide the consensual bottom line for humanitarian action in all circumstances and we will focus our attention on the next two principles out of the seven principles namely neutrality and impartiality which Jean-Christophe introduced as the operational principles and the aim of the discussion is actually to review how neutrality and independence are or effectively contribute to humanitarian effectiveness. I think that Jean-Christophe rightfully emphasize the importance of those principles in situation of conflicts and the perspective of the Red Cross and Red Crescent National Societies and their Federation is not only the conflict zones but also situations of vulnerabilities in peacetime or in disasters or other crisis and in this broader environment as well we believe that the principles are critical in order to have access to the most vulnerable population and to gain the trust to actually secure this access and ensure that we provide assistance. The idea that we will probably hear better from colleagues from the Red Cross in Lebanon is that we must drive really embed those principles even in peacetime in order for them to be here for us in times of conflicts but without further anticipating what the panelists will say I just want to kind of place this into a broader conversation. On our way to the 32nd International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent at the end of this year will be a very important always an important event for the humanitarian community. We're also looking at the World Humanitarian Summit next year looking at in a broader fashion what is the effectiveness and mechanisms and architecture of international assistance and humanitarian aid. And I'm reminded I was reading recently Mark Mallard Brown's essay called Old World Humanitarianism Faces New World Challenges. So I'm opening the conversation by saying is our fund in a open fashion. We asked our Red Cross, Red Crescent folks all the fundamental principles now enshrined 50 years ago still valid, still relevant, still fundamental. And interestingly enough we did rounds around the world with colleagues facilitating this efforts and the answer came back forcefully from our volunteers from our staff yes, more than ever. But tonight we're willing to open that conversation again and say well maybe others think differently and therefore we are really opening this conversation today which is do we need to rethink those principles? We're always seeking to have a better fit to most urgent and changing needs. Do the fundamental principles help or hinder the efficiency of aid? This is the question that we will ask our panelists today. Our neutrality and independence guarantors of effectiveness or do they actually have the same do we have the same interpretation of neutrality and independence among all actors and does that apply in all circumstances? How might the approach and the application of principles of neutrality and independence differ according to the situations? Are the instances where neutrality and independence are interpreted and applied actually go against humanitarian effectiveness? These are really the fundamental questions for today's discussion. So without further ado I'd like to ask our panelists a few questions and then turn to the audience to make this a debate that we engage in together. Your Excellency would you mind since we're discussing humanitarian effectiveness and its relationship to neutrality and independence we may want to ask ourselves what is effectiveness and it's usually understood as the capacity to achieve results. It really often depends on how one sees what the results of humanitarian action should be. So how do you conceive humanitarian effectiveness and how do you see neutrality and independence contribute to it? Thank you very much. Allow me to rescue from my original presentation that was prepared by Guillermo just the two elements to thank the IFRC and ICRC for inviting me to to this event and for having the opportunity to share this panel with such distinguished colleagues. Going straight to your question effectiveness and we need to make a distinction between effectiveness and efficiency which are not the same one and the same but going through the question of effectiveness but effectiveness I would say is providing the best possible assistance and protection to the most vulnerable people in conflict or in disaster. But I have somewhere here a quote from the ASG that I think could be relevant. He once said what is effective needs to extend beyond the international humanitarian system. We need to recognize different perspectives and comparative advantages of the various actors. This is the ASG which in other words means that not all actors that may be engaged on the ground are bound or feel they're bound by the humanitarian principle. So that's a reality. Whether or not we consider them humanitarian actors is a different question. But if we consider actors that engage say in a hurricane a rescue operation in the Philippines 1500 of them humanitarian actors you can see a potential problem of different interpretations. Now when it comes to efficiency how can we achieve efficiency? And I think it has to do with the use of funds. The fact that we ensure that we reach the right people and we are efficient in delivering the aid and the assistance that is needed that will reduce the overhead costs for instance. That we operate under an appropriate humanitarian architecture particularly if we are dealing with a multiplicity of actors. And we probably should also bear in mind the link between humanitarian efforts humanitarian assistance and development. And I think one final element that I would put on the table is to have an exit strategy. I think that's something that has sometimes is missing. We know when to get in but we don't know when to get out and how to get out without leaving certain legacy issues issues behind. And again I'm talking about multiplicity of actors not necessarily by traditional actors who know how to operate and I'm a big fan of ICRC and national societies but when more actors are involved the complexities is bigger is greater. Neutrality means that actors should provide assistance regardless of political, military, racial, religious or ideological considerations. In other words, trust, trust, trust. The actors must be trusted in order to be able to operate and for that neutrality is essential. And I would claim that neutrality is absolutely essential to be effective and efficient. Independence is I think a little bit more complex. I think you need independence and you work on the basis of independence but when you operate in a complex context and not in a vacuum with multiplicity of actors then independence can be a difficult act to follow. But I do submit that you need to at least in principle operate also on the basis of the principle of independence as well. But maybe in a second round I will probably elaborate a little bit more on what could be the restrictions for the implementation on the ground of these principles. Well thank you. I think your explanation of the principles was very articulate and the highlighting I think we will probably want to come back to one of the points you highlighted about the diversity of the actors who find themselves in humanitarian crisis and whether or not they are principled actors and whether or not they are humanitarian actors. But maybe to give after this very clear description a bit of a grounded illustration of this I will turn to George Ketane. George has been a long leader of the activities of the Lebanon Red Cross in fact when I've lost so George I met with him a few of his 2300 volunteers who were manning what is nothing but a national emergency ambulance system for the whole country that has been able to withstand all the political changes and all the across all the political front lines throughout the years and you've been through this George can you maybe through this experience of the Lebanese Red Cross tell us what is humanitarian effectiveness and how does neutrality and independence help achieve it? Thank you George for giving me the opportunity to share with you my experience our experience as a national society first of all we are 2700 first aid workers from 7000 volunteers in the country yes of course we the Lebanese Red Cross when we talk about effectiveness we have to think about our neutrality when we are accepted in the country when there's an acceptance by all the community you know Lebanon is a mosaic you have from all the regions from all the parties from all the community and when you select volunteers with a strict selection to be accepted there's a matter His Excellency talked about the trust there's a matter of trust with the community to get a safer access to be effectiveness to be efficient effectiveness which means you need to be independent we have a mandate we have a close relation with the government of course we have a coordination with all the parties but we need to coordinate with government and with non-government also with all the parties in the field and I can give you a small examples regarding this effectiveness when we receive a call regarding fighters wounded in Arsale in the Bekaa Valley from extremists or from any parties and we have the contacts to cross all the cheekbones from all the parties to be inside Arsale to be neutral and to be transparent and to transport to send one day 19 ambulance to evacuate all these wounded and to cross all the cheekbones to the nearest hospital and to the other hospitals this is neutrality because we are neutral because we are evacuating from both sides from both parties this is the effectiveness and also we are independent which means we are not attached even we have the government and we have the mandate and we this is our government we have to respect all this work but the principle the fundamental principle and specially the independence will show that we need to be in a distance from all the parties to respect everybody and to cross so we can cross all the checkpoints we can achieve our mission we can save lives even another example when we get a wounded from opposition who is blaming any party in the Bekaa and our volunteer are from these communities from these communities from these religions where they continue to be neutral to save his life to protect him and to transfer him to the hospital this is independence and this is neutrality and this is effectiveness I don't know if I can I try to explain to you to show you practically we are not reading the fundamental principles we are practicing the fundamental principle and this is a challenge with the volunteers of the Lebanese at cross and I'm sure with all the movement majority of the movement 189 national society how we can be neutral and how we can be independent and also impartial to get a safer access in all the country I know you enough to know that you do not have your own jet but you do have six cellphones in your pocket seven cellphones is that part of this effort of being neutral and impartial tell us the connection between the cellphones most duplicity and this effort when you talk about effectiveness which means you need to have a strong contact with all the parties from the government and non government for example when we go to the Sabar of Beirut and respond to the Hezbollah in case of need and in parallel the American embassy ask for a post to send ambulance this is neutrality and independence so yes the contact is to have regular contacts with all the parties to solve the problem in the field not to arrest any ambulance not to kidnap any case so this is a discussion of course with ICRC with the movement with our partners this is the communication the communication is very important to the movement to see how we can manage in the field to protect our mission according to the fundamental principles Thank you George We'll come back to you because that reality and that notion that the principles are not just some kind of principle you post on the wall or claim in your brochures or humanitarian action but something that's actually daily driving the re-decision that you make including as you said the training the recruitment process or how you approach the next checkpoint is a very helpful light on this subject I'd like to turn now to Professor Antonio Donini You've taken more of an observer view in recent years and in your analysis do humanitarian actors have the same understanding of humanitarian effectiveness and in that respect are neutrality and independence relevant for all in all circumstances? Thank you Joël The answer is no but because we're in the temple of humanitarianism I want to start by quoting one of the high priests and that is Jean Piquet and Jean Piquet said one cannot be at the same time a champion of justice and a champion of charity one must choose and the reason I point this out is because in the range of positions that you find or actors that you find in these very complex context that both speakers have mentioned you have actors that recognize themselves in the principles the so-called Dunantist actors who try to maintain to put the principles at the forefront of what you do and then you have a range of other players who do useful and interesting work but depending on how close or how far they position themselves from the Dunantist position cannot be really qualified as truly humanitarian in my view they do excellent work but they also have other objectives which are not necessarily always humanitarian and Piquet quote about champion of justice versus champion of charity indicates one of these types of actors which are the actors who come to a situation with the objective of transforming the society or the place that they find not limiting themselves to bandaging the woods saving and protecting the lives of civilians who are at immediate risk so if you you know human rights is very important but mixing a human rights agenda or a development agenda or a political agenda with humanitarian work doesn't sometimes leads to messy situations and I think one of the important things for me is clarity on what your objectives are you may have the rhetoric of principles but sometimes the agencies who have this rhetoric on the ground and this also applies to the UN by the way the UN is not always neutral when it intervenes in countries in crisis so transparency and an alignment vis-à-vis what they say is crucially important the other fundamental issue that maybe we could mention now is that there is again charity on one side and justice on the other justice implies transformation changing addressing the root causes of a crisis so there's a tension between those who see their duty as a deontologist approach to what they do I do this because it's my duty to stick as close as possible as I can to the principle of humanity and those who look more at the consequences you know what I do today what are the implications of what I do today for tomorrow is what I do today going to help to transform a situation and Jean Christophe mentioned Afghanistan and I'll end with this and it was clear after 9-11 when the coalition intervention descendait on Afghanistan that there were very few players it was just ICRC and a couple of others who were focused on the immediate task of providing for the assistance and protection of people at risk the vast majority of actors you know accepted to some extent they had a kind of Wilsonian approach which was sort of to be in line with the foreign policy of their country or of their donors and accepted to work with the coalition with the Afghan government not realizing in my view at the time that they were taking sides because the situation seemed to be one of post conflict but it soon became very soon apparent that it wasn't that conflict was bubbling up again and once you have agreed that or decided that you're in a post conflict situation it becomes very difficult for some of these players to then re-re-gain their virginity and say oh no we are humanitarian we want to work according to principle Thank you Antonio I think that this dichotomy between champions of justice and champions of clarity of charity explains the Dunantis versus the developmental organizations that have arrived together on humanitarian crisis in recent years I wonder whether it actually really is helpful to address the question that's on everybody's mind now especially with the dimension of the crisis in the Middle East whether we are it suffices to heal wounds on the moment and whether we shouldn't find ways to actually address the resilience of the community the ability to cope further without necessarily undertaking the broader developmental agenda but that's probably a subject for another conversation I want to come back to the principles and maybe turn back to our colleague Ambassador Romonaco on hearing our views of our colleague from Lebanon who says I want to have access to all the parties in conflict States sometimes do not want this of humanitarian actors States might be in situations where they actually want to refrain for political reasons access humanitarian access to be leveraged by extremist group or others how do you see that and how do you see any tensions there between this principle of humanitarian action and impartiality sorry neutrality and independence and the practice in your perspective of humanitarian action Yes, I like to think about that question in terms of nuances or restrictions rather than the principles themselves being counterproductive but let us go back take a step back and remind that as opposed to humanity and impartiality which are substantive principles neutrality and independence are derived principles that we learn from the champions and the founders of the ICRC which means that neutrality and independence are not an end in themselves but rather a means to get what we want effectiveness we were talking about effectiveness and I think it is worth making a distinction of potential restrictions or contradictions or nuances in the implementation of these principles when it comes to natural disasters as opposed to armed conflicts and I think that is a completely different scenario when it comes to neutral natural disasters where I see more difficulties potential difficulties with independence rather than with neutrality and the other way around when it comes to armed conflict now principles are principles that's it that's the end of the discussion however the reality on the ground is neither black nor white and this is where the nuances may come into conflicts that require political efforts to be resolved then can hamper neutrality or independence or the other way around neutrality and independence particularly neutrality can hamper a political solution sometimes or a political solution can hamper neutrality particularly in a scenarios such as the one that you described I can imagine a few when you have multiplicity of actors when you have to work with the local authorities that condition the operation of humanitarian actors on the ground to certain restrictions that could be political or otherwise or politically motivated because sometimes neutrality and independence but more neutrality I think can be perceived as lack of commitment by some actors by some governments by local authorities by military actors I think we can imagine situations when that's the case and we can imagine situations like that happening as we speak probably in the Middle East maybe even Northern Africa as well independence in terms of natural disasters can become a burden for efficiency at some point and I go back to the example of the 1500 different actors operating in good faith all of them trying to help the Philippine authorities to recover from the hurricane and how much burden they became for the Philippine government because they have to dedicate and distract resources to coordinate these 1500 actors that were on the ground roaming freely like white animals and it can happen so you need to and it became a burden and this is not my analysis this is the part of the roaming wildest mind entirely mind but this was a conversation by the ambassador of the Philippines and sharing how difficult how challenging was to coordinate how much it became a burden in terms of resources both human and financial resources to be able to coordinate and for them not to step into each other's toes and so on and so forth so proliferation of humanitarian actors can become in itself a challenge to the principles a challenge to the proliferation now also the fact that not all actors are fit for all humanitarian assistance activities there are certain actors that are fit for certain activities and we often see that blur in lines and then I know that development and resilience is a completely different matter but for some receptors the linkage between humanitarian assistance and development is right there and the afterthought of capacity building that humanitarian actors shouldn't live without leaving a trace a legacy of capacity building and my final point will be again the exit strategy particularly when it comes to armed conflicts how and when do you live what's the legacy behind whether you're accountable as a humanitarian actor after departing of what's left behind and whether you have certain responsibility of whatever problems may arise after your departure or your non-departure as well and brings up the question of the principle of right to protect and whether we should add a fourth leg to the principle which is accountability you have the right to protect you have the right to go in but when leaving you have also certain responsibility when you leave behind whatever particularly if you leave behind a mess of directions there one that echoes probably very strongly throughout the room the notion that the lines are blurred and when actors who must be political actors must resolve conflicts turn to interpret their mandate only as humanitarians then we know that we have no solution to a situation and that's one of the problems we find ourselves far too often in but you brought a few other points that possibly our other panelists may want to echo on and say how do those comments echo with the practice of the Red Cross in Lebanon of all the times you've witnessed those principles used by the Red Cross to deliver impartial humanitarian assistance which times comes most in the mind illustrating some of those concepts and how do you feel that neutrality and independence are really equally relevant in all circumstances or only in situations of conflict I think after the experience it's important that neutrality and impartiality also and independence they are the key drivers of the overall performance of our national society which means always we have to work in time of peace and in time of war it's not we can use the principles when we have a war we will not use it when we are in the natural disaster the awareness the contact, the communication with our movement sharing experience lessons learned what I'm trying to say of course we cannot solve the world we cannot solve all the problems but we can reduce the problems we can try to convince and to aware the governments the parties and the others how we can work together how we can complement each other working in the south working in Beirut working in Beirut working in the north this is very important to show you how much we are neutral and we have a strong networking how we can manage to have strong communication with the parties with the governments with the actors how we can evaluate and assess together with the ICRC federation and movement lessons learned how we can learn the gaps from the missing always we have problems nobody is perfect but we try to see how we can manage to get always in time the time is very important for us to see how we can manage to save lives how we can manage to protect the people how we can manage to protect the dignity of the human being so this is why these principles for us are always a symbol in practice in training the recruitment of the volunteer the recruitment is very important the volunteer in the EMS will stay in approbation between nine months and one year to be accepted to move because a lot of politics in Middle East I don't want to talk more politics but a lot of politics it's a mosaic so this is why we are always with the parties with non-government with all the parties to see how we can be effectiveness, how we can be efficient according to these principles till now we are maintaining and we are sustaining our mission, our service and we are trying always to present to our community the hope there's the hope and you realize we have now 1.5 million Syrian refugees we have more 1.500 thousand Palestinians and we have Iraqis which means we have more than 50% of the Lebanese community how we can be neutral and independent and impartial to balance between saving and helping these people and this is a big challenge with the support, with the preparedness with the lessons learned we can do a lot of things but in practice we are enhancing the government with debating and discussing always to show how much it's not a show, it's a reality in practice how we are working and this is a big challenge the accountability, yes we need to have accountability to be more effective to have a more effective system to protect these people to protect the wounded they have to feel that and the government with transparency when we evacuate any wounded from any parties we will inform all the parties with transparency we get the safer access we will move 6 hours the mission sometimes 4 hours from Bekaa to north even Lebanon is small but you need 4 to 6 hours so this is very important to see how we can manage that the community the wounded feel that he is protected he has his dignity and we are saving his life and protecting his dignity, thank you Thank you, is there did you ever find yourself still finding that there were cases you could not deal with in other words, circumstances where the key, that golden key of neutrality and independence that you've developed over years of education, party engagement training of volunteers and supervised processes in your national societies did you still feel like there are times where you can't act? till now I'm acting but I feel that it become more difficult and more difficult and more difficult to be frank with you, it's difficult the situation in Middle East is not easy and this is why we continue to re-contact our disseminate share with all the parties to maintain this safer access to maintain this acceptance to maintain this trust it is a must to work according this principles it's not easy, I'm sure and we cannot, for example in the ambulance, we cannot respond 100% we respond 80% our hope to arrive to achieve 80%, nobody can respond 100% nobody we try, we'll try with the other actors we'll try to convince the others we'll try to convince all the parties how we are helping all we are helping I'll give you a small small example when we have this fight, the last fight from Shiba, you know, the south and we evacuate this wounded from Syria we get a safer access and later on there's a debate to see because there's a hotshot from the army and we cannot cross it's difficult I'm not saying it's easy, it's a politic decision but we have to try to push to see how we can manage with our partners, with our movement with ICRC to see how we can always we need to have hope hope to save lives and to let the community feel that someone is coming to help them and this is the big challenge how we can continue maintaining our mission without obstacles and I think, you know, 80% in Middle East, it's not natural disaster it's man-made disaster all this conflict, man-made another example you have 1,450 small camps for Syrian refugees where 50% are in the camps and 80% they are spread everywhere in all the country so it's not easy you have to help these people there's a competition now between the host community they thought it's for 3 months and 6 months now it's for years and it will be more and more and this is the challenge we have to see how we can maintain these principles how we can always count on this principle as I mentioned, in reality Thank you George, quite compelling Antonio you've seen the practice on the ground by a variety of institutions you've also seen the dialogues at the global level on the principles I was struck by the fact that in recent years there were debates as to whether neutrality should or not be included in the core humanitarian standard it sounds like taking out a fundamental piece if we hear George taking out a fundamental piece out of the whole approach how do you explain that what are the main criticisms to this principle Well, there's two questions there one is the criticisms from inside the humanitarian community and the criticisms from the outside from the political community in particular but I want to go back to something that the ambassador said he mentioned that there's lots of different shades and the situations are messy and it's true you have the principles like a bright light shining from the top of the hill but reality is much more messy on the ground and there's lots of shades of grey at least 50 shades of grey I'd say and it's important to understand the differences between approaches and at one extreme we have Colin Powell who said at the time of the intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan to the US NGOs that are coming to see him you are our force multipliers you are part of our combat team so if as an NGO you accept that you are part of the US combat team in Afghanistan then how could you possibly even consider being neutral but a number of valid criticisms to neutrality and usually I find these criticisms are misplaced because they are directed to the wrong destinataire the ambassador mentioned that neutrality can hamper a political solution well yes but is it the responsibility of humanitarian actors to find political solutions the other criticism that is often levied to principles and particularly neutrality is around root causes you guys you are bandaging wounds you are putting a bandage on a festering sore but you are not addressing the root causes ok but is that the role of humanitarians to address the root causes of a crisis it is true and we don't have an answer to this that there are some crisis where we have been around for 30 or 40 years Sudan, Afghanistan the risk there and why I say the destinataire is wrong is that it's not the responsibility of the humanitarians if these crisis have been going on for so long another criticism that you hear is that it's the political argument that you guys are political it's a myth that you are neutral you are part of an agenda maybe it's not the western imperialistic agenda but it's somehow linked to the way in which the west has organized itself and these principles have arisen in history at a time when the west was expanding I think there is an issue there I mean how are we perceived as humanitarian players even the most principled humanitarian players in the global south I think we are seen differently in various places the other issue that maybe is worth mentioning here and the ambassador also mentions state sovereignty and I think here one has to be nuanced rightly there are situations where you know 150 no 1500 angels descending on on the Philippines is not a good thing if the government has the capacity and the resources to coordinate and to decide who should bear who should be there and who shouldn't that's fine the tricky issues are where the government where the state is the enemy of its own people and there on the one hand the humanitarian enterprise wants to support state sovereignty in the sense that the state should be the first responder but on the other hand what do we do in places like Syria where we seem to be but where perhaps humanitarianism has reached its structural limits you know there's not much more that we can do unless a political solution emerges out of somewhere so yeah principles are there to guide you sometimes of course you have to sit down and have dinner with very unsavory people of the devil because it's a messy world out there and compromises have to be made I don't think that neutrality answers all questions at all times I do think that neutrality is important in certain types of situations because it's a means that gives you access Afghanistan was mentioned earlier I think you know being neutral opens more doors than being aligned with the political agendas if you want to reach certain groups that are not in the cities where the aid enterprise is now confined thank you I would like to suggest we continue this conversation not lose that thought and bounce back on it but invite the audience to actually join in so I don't know what is the system for microphones do we have roving microphones or maybe raise your hands and we'll see whether the voice is heard please join in to the conversation I have no doubt there are many Nora please good afternoon thanks for all the presentation the ambassadors referred to indeed and rightly so of course that there are lots of different contexts and I'm not very familiar with the debate but this reference increasingly made especially in this house to other situations of violence meaning criminalized violence not only in urban areas and whether or not humanitarians have a role to play in these situations so I don't know if the table would like to address that issue the extent to which humanitarian principles relate to or useful and the settings that are referred to as other situations of violence thank you thank you I'll take we'll take a couple more questions and then invite our colleagues yes Yes, I'm Jules Frost with World Vision and this is to the panel but given part of what's been said just now I'm wondering if there's concurrence that principles and pragmatism can coexist or would some still say that they're contradictory thanks question in the back hello thank you so far for your comments my question relates to the concept of vulnerability and your excellency in your opening comments you mentioned your effectiveness is about bringing the best help to the most vulnerable people and efficiency is about bringing action to the right people which I think you were referring to vulnerable people so my question is panel if you'd like to elaborate a little bit more on the concept of vulnerability and how that is assessed and if there's any tension arising with maintaining neutrality or impartiality when deciding who the most vulnerable people are I have some more questions but I suggest we ask our panelists to response the first question was about the role of independence, neutrality and actually all humanitarian principles in the response to other forms of violence such as other situations of violence such as criminalized violence the question of whether principles and pragmatism can coexist that one I have the sense will be enthusiastically responded promptly but hopefully it will be helpful to hear views and then the last one is how do we assess vulnerability and how do we actually realize impartiality and all other principles in doing so so panelist who wants to Ambassador I'll tackle the easiest one first principles and pragmatism can coexist absolutely the fact that they are nuances or difficulties at times doesn't mean that they cannot coexist they should coexist and I think that the challenge for all actors state or non state particular humanitarian actors is to overcome the whatever nuances or difficulties there might be to make sure that principles remain where they should be while going through the actual reality on the ground so I do believe that they can certainly coexist on the question of other situations of violence this has been an ongoing discussion for a number of years it was right in the center of the last conference four years ago and it might again come back this year so I would refrain from getting into that this is part of an ongoing discussion between different actors and particularly state actors when it comes to the preparatory process of the next conference it's one issue that doesn't necessarily bring a common view and there are a number of states are not necessarily one not to the idea to expand or to see that the inclusion of other situations of violence might be in itself an expansion of the mandate of the humanitarian actors but as I said this is an ongoing discussion as is the mechanism that has been championed by the Swiss government and the ICRC for establishing a monitoring voluntary reporting implementation of IHL regularly maybe yearly basis that we strongly support Mexico strongly supports and as a matter of fact I wouldn't mind it to be mandatory as opposed to voluntary but you have to deal with when it comes to compromising with the state actors when it comes to how to best assess vulnerability I think the other members because as to do in order to respond properly you have to have experience on the ground that I certainly don't have I will add what Ambassador mentioned about the other situation of violence it's our aim to get this resolution and this debate with all the states because when we have this resolution because we are in the field and we are feeling the problems when there is a violence we are moving and it's about I think health care in danger and safer access and other situation of violence and this is a long debate we have to continue to push and to convince our governments to accept this situation and to see how we can save lives more and be involved and not to repeat it but it's it's of course according to our experience always there's a clear assessment when we talk about vulnerable people usually we face this problem in the field when it's there's no coordination between the government and the actors in the field and you cannot arrive or to respond to the vulnerable people where if you don't have this contact with all these parties in the field you feel that always each party in the field there's a competition they feel that they are more vulnerable than the others and they want to be supported and help and this is why in according to our mission and according to our mandate and experience that we need to organize a strong relation with all these parties in the priority when we talk about vulnerable vulnerability there's a lot of priority in vulnerability and this is why yes it's very important for us to move and to push to convince and in the field I think the authority when there's a problem in the field 60% of the army will not respect rules when there's a fight we have to wait to convince or to green light or to ceasefire to see so each party will think that they have the right and they are more vulnerable than the others and this is why we try always to according to be neutral in these principles to show that we have to be in a distance but by priority we have to convince this party about the priority I don't know if I present it well but at least of priority you have the ten minutes when we talk about the ten minutes in disaster you have the one hour the golden hour you have a lot of issue in the field when you respond in the field but priority is the case when you see a lot of cases when you have a mass of casualties of mass of wounded and you have the priority to recruit and to the triage and to help the people that is my answer to this I will talk only about the issue of principles and pragmatism I think there is no tension between principles and pragmatism in fact principles are quite pragmatic neutrality is a means to an end and so is independence and the best humanitarians are those who guide their pragmatism by using principles as a frame of reference but but not being principled has consequences and let me just give you one example from Afghanistan last time I went to Afghanistan I met with an Afghan friend of mine who runs a small NGO they do small infrastructure and some training and they work down in Helmand and of course he is from Helmand so he knows everybody there and one day he gets a message from the Taliban saying we want to talk to you he said ok we are going to give him an appointment at a certain place and then they take him to a house and they wanted to discuss his projects in Helmand because they thought he was going to put the logo of ISAF on the fountain that he was building at the bus stop and he goes into this house and he sees three young guys behind computers and he says oh who are you we are the Taliban Development Committee for Helmand and what are you doing you can't fool you can get away with not respecting principles or fudging where your money comes from and whether you are taking sides or you can fool the Taliban maybe once but they are watching you and I think because of social media because of communication non-state armed actors are getting much more proficient in checking out what we do but I said in my first intervention transparency is very important don't pretend that you are principled if you are not and if you are principled then use that as a way to negotiate access to the people who need your help Complementary word on both the question of situations of violence and vulnerability on other situations of violence it seems to be very clear that the sensitivities are about international systems IHL in the context of those circumstances but in practice on the ground the national societies of the Red Cross and Red Crescent actually get involved in situations of violence in situation of criminalized violence and their challenge there is the fact that at the moment in most countries where they operate the principles of humanitarianism which basically the principle of impartiality which says you must go to the most vulnerable and therefore and the principles of independence and neutrality which means you will speak to armed gangs even if they are criminals in consequences often means the criminalization of the humanitarian access as in the process so I think it's a real deep question that we must reflect upon and that is at the heart of the preoccupation of many national societies of the Red Cross and Red Crescent on the question of vulnerability I think we talk a lot about other countries and conflict situation we must also reflect on our own societies our own societies have really need to reflect on the principles of humanitarian action even in western national societies we've seen some of our Red Cross and Red Crescent organizations see their own societies and in some cases their own volunteers having a rather sobering moment meaning not necessarily being convinced that we must support migrants not necessarily being convinced that migrants support despite their extreme vulnerability should be over the priority equivalent over the vulnerability of the local citizens made vulnerable by the economic crisis and I think we need to reflect in our own societies of the importance of that question for assessing vulnerability but anyway I should not overstep my role as a moderator I should instead invite colleagues around the room to intervene we have a question here and one here and over there Good evening I'm Ahmed from ICRC my question is to Mr Antonio Dunini how do you think that the humanitarian organizations can balance their following the humanitarian principles and their temptation towards speaking out because we saw a lot of cases where speaking out was why not say more effective but it was very needed like in Rwanda, Kosovo or Yugoslavia or maybe also MSF usually do this and then they expelled out of the country and the other organizations start to continue so how can they balance this temptation Second question here Thank you I am Cornelius Omaruga I am a man of the past but in this past I was also president of the ICRC during 13 years these two principles and I come back to something that Ambassador Romonaco said principles are principles I think for the Red Cross movement they are even more than principles because they are in the law they are in the statutes of the international movement and they address not only national societies ICRC and the Federation but also governments all governments that have participated into the ratification of Geneva Conventions now neutrality for the ICRC fundamental for protection I have some doubts that national societies could always be able to practice neutrality particularly in a situation of an international conflict if they are on the one side it will be difficult to keep this neutrality independence independence is very important for the ICRC it is a challenge for the ICRC because the ICRC is financed by governments and it is a challenge to be transparent and accountable enough in order to avoid bad interpretations about independence as to national societies independence if you consider that the states of the movement it is said that independence does not prevent to be the auxiliary of public authorities this creates a certain problem because you have a number of national societies that are very close to the government and so close that they have even military corps inside the national society we have not to go very far even in this country where you are sitting now there is such a situation so that there the independence in respect of government is very problematic I would like simply to make this difference and say finally as to neutrality and also independence it was very important for the ICRC to make a step forward during my presidency the conclusion of a net quarters agreement also with Switzerland in order to have this full independence and also neutrality in being able to take their own positions even for an organization that is built on the top by Swiss citizens they have not to be to have interferences by the government these were some remarks and not necessarily questions but if you have answers to these points I am very interested to hear you. Thank you. Thank you Dr. Sumaruga we are delighted to have you with us tonight Thank you. There was a question in the back, yes. I just wanted to ask you about can neutrality and rights of front coexist basically looking at Syria today with barrel bombs hospital attacks a lot of information we have on situation and children and so on is there a limit to neutrality or when there is a situation when neutrality becomes basically ethically undefendable for whom for humanitarian actors May I turn first to Antonio if I may I think the first and the last questions had quite a lot in common both balancing the principle of neutrality with the possibility of speaking out and particularly how speaking out may be an expected move when neutrality has only met a certain limit I was hoping nobody would ask this question because it's a difficult one and agencies whether it's the ICRC or MSF have evolved over time, sometimes with ups and downs and I don't think there's a hard and fast rule that can help to answer the question of whether and when you should speak out other than to say that you have to balance speaking out with are you going to save more lives by speaking out or are you going to put more people at risk and going back to Afghanistan when I was in Orcha then you know we always had these country team meetings where we would have these arguments we can't accept this we have to say no we have to threaten that we leave and the more saner voices were saying yes but what's our best alternative to a negotiated agreement so is it better to continue negotiating with these profidious Taliban who had their own agendas but also somehow wanted to be there and help the population under their control but under their rules and principles or should we make a stand and I think making a stand if just for the pleasure of making a stand or because it makes you feel good clearly doesn't work and is usually counterproductive you know I think you should ask the ethicists in the room like Hugo to answer the question on can neutrality and human rights up front coexist I would answer it's a bit flippant but I would say well is the UN neutral and therefore does it really make that much of a difference I think human rights up front is interesting in some ways because as the Secretary General says to its staff you guys human rights is in your life blood so you have to put human rights in everything you do but does that mean that you use human rights also that tool in all situations in some situations it's messy you know you have to sit down with the guys who control territory and see what kind of deals you can make sometimes these deals are not very good but if they help to save lives I think the principle of humanity trumps all others Thank you Antonio back to the same question but from a field perspective I'd like to bring both the question of taking a stand taking a public stand did it ever happen in Lebanon where you said enough with this we cannot do this the question is coming from Dr. Samaruga is there how do you experience the tension because you have an auxiliary role that means you are the first port of call for government to partner with on humanitarian action and at the same time you are firming deeply your independence how does that work in Lebanon Look in Lebanon Dr. Samaruga you know when you have a government controlling the country you will deal with the government sometimes I have a lot of experience that we try always to be diplomat and to have a distance we cannot we don't have arms we cannot fight but we can convince and take a distance because we have a lot of parties not only the government independence you need to have autonomy to deal with all the parties because if you are attached to the government you cannot move to the other region so always neutral it is very important even for international of course I will give you an example of Israel and the south of Lebanon when we cannot talk to them of course ICRC was doing this this contact but when we have a wanted we have to be neutral independent and impartial and to help any human being and we have in Marjayoun and in Hermesh and in Hasbaya we have these stations and they are responding according to the fundamental principles but independence in Middle East you know it's not stable it's not like Geneva so you have to deal with everybody to be independent you cannot say I respect my government I have mandate of course I have to respect and accept but I am in all the country and this is why I am accepted by all the community I am with my government I am coordinating but also I have to coordinate with others and this is my independence I have to be equal when I transport cases from Fatah al-Islam from Barid camp cross the checkpoint of the army and transfer them to the hospital and I inform them with transparency and protect these people when I have no man's land no man's land controlled by the army a fighter from Fatah al-Islam Palestine cannot take this case and I told him go and talk to this person because he is conscious where he wants to go he say I want to go inside in the Palestinian camp and the ambulance is afraid because perhaps they will face a problem with the army or if they go out they will face a problem so he will decide to go inside we say because we convince the army and respect the IHL that he has to go inside so this is independence reality and this is how in practice we have to convince the authorities and the parties and the community that we are for everybody who are neutral, independent and impartial very interesting illustration also a great answer to the earlier question can principles and pragmatisms go exist may I invite other comments and questions other comments well we have come to the end of our conversation I would like to maybe ask brief conclusion remarks from our panelists and may we start with you Ambassador thank you may be touching upon a couple of points to your description of vulnerable people and the emphasis of migrants I would totally poursuivre les minorités on a un général consul de Mexico en Miami on a six hurricanes en Florida un d'entre eux a touché le terrain d'un camp mobile a été placé et a été rempli avec des migrants mexicains et leurs houses n'étaient pas mal mais leurs homes n'étaient complètement détruits et leur FIMA l'agence du gouvernement qui peut être considérée un acteur humanitaire ou pas a des règles spécifiques qui ne donnent pas l'assistance à ceux qui ne sont pas les citoyens de l'Université donc nous devons trouver parce que ce sont les gens qui ont le plus besoin de l'assistance financière de FIMA Fortunatement nous pouvons acheter un accord avec le gouvernement qui produisent une interprétation de la loi qui permet aux enfants de les migrants d'appliquer pour les assistants de FIMA parce qu'ils étaient bornés dans le U.S. ce qui est souvent le cas les enfants de les migrants mexicains qui sont documentés sont bornés dans le U.S. pour les citoyens de l'Université mais les migrants étaient éligibles donc vous devez trouver votre route la question de la neutralité et de l'R2P et je me sens responsable parce que j'introduis le R2P dans mes réponses et je répondrais à cette question par la ligne de quelque chose que Antonio a dit et il est absolument correct pour les agreements politiques ni pour les conflits de 30 ans mais ils peuvent avoir l'effet sur non les conflits de 30 ans mais sur les agreements politiques donc il y a des tensions, il y a peut-être des tensions entre R2P et la neutralité entre les actions actuelles et certains agreements politiques n'ont pas nécessairement une contradiction il n'y a pas une exclusion mais il peut y avoir des tensions je voudrais dire que avec tous ces problèmes dans le monde nous devons continuer d'implementer de répondre de maintenir de soutenir notre mission et notre service selon les principes fondamentaux et surtout d'indépendance, de neutralité et d'imparcialité je ne pourrai pas oublier la unité la unité n'est pas seulement d'avoir 100 fois ou 100 fois la unité d'être accepté et de bouger de la communauté de tous les communautés d'avoir des gens de la communauté de continuer de sauver les vies et de convaincre nos politiciens de changer leurs minds que nous devons aider et que nous devons soutenir et que nous devons réduire tous ces problèmes dans le monde nous espérons merci la bonne news est que personne soit dans le panel ou dans l'audience a dit que nous devons faire des principes ou modifier ou ajouter des choses que l'ontabilité et l'affectivité doit aussi être des principes et des codes de conduct de l'NGO ont fait ça mais il y a un autre mouvement là-bas que je pense que nous devons être mindful et c'est ce qui se passe dans les parts du sud global où les gens sont en train de sauver des vies et de protéger les gens par des mécanismes et des formes d'intervention qui sont vraiment en train d'avoir des principes que ça pourrait être l'NGO dans le Middle East peut-être des États-Unis je suis juste de la Chine l'humanité a l'air très différent de la Changai pour eux les principes viennent de confusions c'est la responsabilité et la légitimité l'empereur peut seulement être légitimité c'est la responsabilité et la légitimité pour les gens c'est l'approche que la Chine est paternalistique qu'ils ont utilisé dans leur réponses domestiques pour la crise et les conflits donc je pense que nous devons prendre cette debate au fur et à l'intérieur du monde et ne pas être satisfaits avec notre sens de confort que tout le monde apprécie ils ne sont pas sous-thrait mais il y a des choses qui se passent qu'on doit être mindful de merci Antonio je pense que cette perspective sur comment les différents environnements et la nouvelle leadership dans le monde humanitaire sont en train de prendre les questions il va probablement être un sujet d'une prochaine conversation j'aimerais que cette conversation s'occupe de l'expertise qu'on avait dans le panel en particulier George vous devez aller à Beirut je vous souhaite le meilleur pour votre équipe qui fait un travail extraordinaire je veux remercier l'audience c'est une série nos collègues de l'Humanitarium vont vous accueillir dans une prochaine conversation et si nous pouvons vous tourner dans les champions nous aimerons que cet événement si vous n'avez pas dit, let's throw away the fundamental principles we expect that this conversation will continue this year and in October we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the fundamental principles and we count on all of you to remain the champions of those thank you