More than 200 million people live today in contested territories – places where the authority of the state is challenged outright and armed groups exercise full or fluid control. This number has risen by 30 million since 2021. These are not distant statistics; each figure represents a person living in the shadow of competing powers, making difficult choices in an almost impossible environment.
How do people navigate the presence of multiple, often competing, armed actors? Is dignity found in defiance, or safety in uneasy compliance? How do families secure food, water or medical care when neither the state nor armed groups are able or willing to provide basic services? And, crucially, what can humanitarian actors do to better protect and assist those caught in these fractured landscapes?
In this post, and drawing on recently published research in Cameroon, Iraq and the Philippines, Arjun Claire, Senior Policy Adviser at the ICRC, and Matthew Bamber-Zryd, the ICRC’s Adviser on Armed Groups, offer five insights to help strengthen humanitarian responses in contested territories – insights rooted in the lived realities of the people who navigate them every day.
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More than 200 million people live today in contested territories – places where the authority of the state is challenged outright and armed groups exercise full or fluid control. This number has risen by 30 million since 2021. These are not distant statistics; each figure represents a person living in the shadow of competing powers, making difficult choices in an almost impossible environment.
How do people navigate the presence of multiple, often competing, armed actors? Is dignity found in defiance, or safety in uneasy compliance? How do families secure food, water or medical care when neither the state nor armed groups are able or willing to provide basic services? And, crucially, what can humanitarian actors do to better protect and assist those caught in these fractured landscapes?
In this post, and drawing on recently published research in Cameroon, Iraq and the Philippines, Arjun Claire, Senior Policy Adviser at the ICRC, and Matthew Bamber-Zryd, the ICRC’s Adviser on Armed Groups, offer five insights to help strengthen humanitarian responses in contested territories – insights rooted in the lived realities of the people who navigate them every day.
‘Constant care’ must be taken to address bias in military AI
ICRC Humanitarian Law and Policy Blog
14 minutes 49 seconds
3 months ago
‘Constant care’ must be taken to address bias in military AI
As many states, especially those with large and resourceful militaries, are exploring the potential of using artificial intelligence (AI) in targeting decisions, there is an urgent need to understand the risks associated with these systems, one being the risks of bias. However, while concerns about bias are often mentioned in the military AI policy debate, how it manifests as harm and what can be done to address it is rarely discussed in depth. This represents a critical gap in efforts to ensure the lawful use of military AI.
To help bridge this gap, Laura Bruun and Marta Bo from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) unpack the humanitarian and legal implications of bias in military AI. They show how bias in military AI is likely to manifest in more complex and subtle ways than portrayed in policy debates, and if unaddressed, it may affect compliance with IHL principles of distinction, proportionality, and, especially, precautions in attack.
ICRC Humanitarian Law and Policy Blog
More than 200 million people live today in contested territories – places where the authority of the state is challenged outright and armed groups exercise full or fluid control. This number has risen by 30 million since 2021. These are not distant statistics; each figure represents a person living in the shadow of competing powers, making difficult choices in an almost impossible environment.
How do people navigate the presence of multiple, often competing, armed actors? Is dignity found in defiance, or safety in uneasy compliance? How do families secure food, water or medical care when neither the state nor armed groups are able or willing to provide basic services? And, crucially, what can humanitarian actors do to better protect and assist those caught in these fractured landscapes?
In this post, and drawing on recently published research in Cameroon, Iraq and the Philippines, Arjun Claire, Senior Policy Adviser at the ICRC, and Matthew Bamber-Zryd, the ICRC’s Adviser on Armed Groups, offer five insights to help strengthen humanitarian responses in contested territories – insights rooted in the lived realities of the people who navigate them every day.
