Juliana Francis
On June, 24, concerned human rights activists, civil society organisations and lawmakers gathered at Ikeja, Lagos State, to brainstorm and fashion out ways of strengthening and institutionalising a bill, addressing protection of civilians and civilians harm mitigation in armed conflict.
Most of the lawmakers are members of Defence and
Security Committees Chairmen in the House of Representatives. The committee
members reviewed the proposed bill, which include policies in order to ensure
standards and specifications are met. To
ensure that the bill was top notched, these parties embarked on a one-day
retreat in Lagos.
The retreat was spearheaded by the Civil Society
Legislative Advocacy Centre ((CISLAC) and Centre for Civilians in Conflict
(CIVIC) with support from Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA).
After this, the proposed bill will be presented on
the floor of the House, and if Nigeria goes ahead to institutionalise this law,
it becomes the first in Africa to do so.
The Chairman, House Committee on Army, Honourable
Abdulrazak Sa’ad Namdas, said that the one-day retreat was towards
institutionalising the essential to the development of a legal framework,
strategies, and plans for protection of civilians living in conflict-zones as
they continued to experience the devastating impacts of conflict-related
damages, increased vulnerability and trust deficit, with wide-ranging effects
on health and human sufferings.
He added: “Protecting civilians has too often been
understood through the prism of compliance with international humanitarian law.
This is an incomplete view. Compliance with the law is the bare minimum, but
current patterns of harm, and long-term effects of hostilities highlight the
need for legal framework and compliance to effectively prevent, minimise, and
respond to civilian harm.”
He said that this should entail prioritizing the
health and wellbeing of people, supporting a political and social structure
that ensures justice and dignity, and protecting the environment, and be
understood as a wider goal of conflict prevention and response.
The chairman noted that no effective protection
strategy could be conceived without a sound understanding of the violations and
abuses that were committed.
This, he said, includes among others, their
rationale, direct and indirect effects, and the social and legal framework in
which they took place.
He said: “The general lack of protection in crises
affecting civilians caught up in armed conflict and other situations of
violence is due, not to an inadequate legal framework, but to poor compliance.”
He explained that the retreat would specifically
look at the proposed bill and policies and design strategies for its
engagement.
During consideration of the draft bill, the parties
reviewed the content to ensure standards and specifications were met, design
and agree the specific strategies and approach, to be presented jointly or
individually with time-line, the frameworks to be listed and mentioned on the
floor of the House.
They also reviewed adoption of roadmap to convene
public hearing on the bill soon with CISLAC and CIVIC leading in the process.
The Executive Director of CISLAC, Auwal Ibrahim Musa,
said that it gives him great pleasure to speak alongside Defence and Security
Committees Chairmen in the House of Representatives in an attempt to put a
framework together that safeguards civilians caught in armed conflict.
He said that the tragedies he had seen in his career
had left deep scars within him. He
added, “Unlike many victims in the field, my scars are invisible. Ten years
into defence and security engagement within CISLAC, I mustered up the courage
to say, 'it does not have to be this way!’ With CISLAC’s peace building efforts
across the country, we see the daily realities of what happens when civilian
populations are not protected during conflict and other situations of violence.
There are millions of people living in desperate and terrifying places, and
there is no matter more urgent than their protection and the only way to
achieving that is to ask the Legislature, as the anchor of democratic
accountability, to come to the rescue with an instrument that protects.”
Musa further used the occasion to advocate that all
conflicting parties in Nigeria should avoid using explosive weapons which have
a wide impact area in populated places. In addition to the high risk of
indiscriminate civilian death and injury, such heavy explosive weapons can
cause extensive damage to critical infrastructure, such as health care, water
and electricity, said Musa.
He also stated that critically, under International Humanitarian
Law (IHL), civilians must not only be protected from attack and the impact of
conflict, but also be able to go about their daily lives.
He said: “But we see too often the fabric of
communities is eroded. Children cannot attend school, the sick cannot reach
hospitals and livelihoods are interrupted or ceased entirely. When people live in fear and cannot safely
continue their activities, they risked becoming marginalised, destitute and
reliant on humanitarian aid.”
Musa argued that protection of civilians in armed
conflict was central to the achievement of government policy to prevent, manage
and resolved conflict, and to improve the effectiveness of the humanitarian
system.
“Civilian harm mitigation cannot be achieved in a
vacuum. Consideration of the proposed bill into law provides that roadmap to
actualise this. Good practice is equally important in states’ counter-terrorism
activities amounting to armed conflict. The violations committed by the enemy
must not result in the lowering of standards by states, which are still obliged
to respect IHL. The law is vital and can help parties find practical solutions
to humanitarian problems,” Musa further argued.
The protection of civilians and civilian harm
mitigation in armed conflict bill can contribute towards managing and reducing
the direct impact of conflict on affected populations, said Musa. “For example,
it can help ensure that armed groups are less inclined to target civilians and
that they are less likely to use civilian populations to achieve their military
objectives.”
He also said, “It further provides that civilians
shall enjoy general protection from the effects of armed conflict, protects
civilians from being the object of attack, and prohibits attacks that are
indiscriminate.”
He noted that unless Nigeria put up a deliberate
legal framework in place, and considering the character of armed conflict in
Nigeria, “which now sees an increased blurring of the distinctions between
adversaries and the way they use force to achieve political goals, future
conflict will blend the lethality traditionally associated with state conflict
and the fanatical and protracted fervor of irregular warfare. This confused,
messy and uncontrollable aspect of conflict complicates the practicalities of
how you protect civilians. Separating ‘the people’ from the conflict is often
impossible and their protection relies on a comprehensive approach to conflict
resolution which this proposed frameworks are designed to support.”
According to Musa, the parliament was the workshop
of democracy, and thus it was within that workshop, where the necessary powers
of the state were determined and set within limits.
He said that there should be no area of state
activity that was a ‘no-go’ zone for parliamentary oversight. He also said that
protection of civilian was one of the core tasks of a state.
“That is why ensuring an instrument that promotes
the issues around protection and civilian harm mitigation is even more
important than anything else. Right to life is sacrosanct. Effective and
independent monitoring and reporting of compliance with human rights and IHL in
situations of conflict is critical to raise awareness of protection issues, and
provides the necessary evidence base for political and legal action. The
parliament owes it as a duty to engage.”
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