Publications

Visual notes PAX PoC 2020

January 19, 2021

The annual PAX PoC Conferences are organized by PAX’s PoC Team in partnership with the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs. On December 1-3, 2020, the PAX Protection of Civilians Conference brought together a network of PoC partners on three key themes: People and Protection, National Contributions to PoC, and the Reverberating Effects of Civilian Harm. In this document you can browse through visual notes depicting key themes of the sessions.

Training for the Protection of Civilians in UN Peacekeeping Operations

Recommendations brief for Member States ahead of the 2021 UN Peacekeeping Ministerial

January 15, 2021

In this briefing paper on Training for the Protection of Civilians in UN Peacekeeping Operations PAX puts forward recommendations for consideration by UN Member States ahead of the 2021 UN Peacekeeping Ministerial. The brief was informed by PAX’s (joint) events and conversations with PoC and training experts from the UN, Member States, peacekeeping training institutions, and civil society.

Literature Review Community Engagement: Concepts, Guidelines, and Recommendations

January 8, 2021

This literature review aims to provide an overview of publications that address the concept and practice of Community Engagement (CE) in conflict- and crisis-affected contexts. The objective of this review is to garner existing engagement concepts, guidelines and tools, their shortcomings, and current field-based recommendations for a practice- and people-centered approach in engaging with local communities during peacekeeping and humanitarian operations.

Reverberating Effects from Military Action

Considerations for Military Actors (Recommendations Brief)

December 17, 2020

One of the themes of the 2020 PAX PoC Conference was reverberating effects of use of force on civilians. During armed conflict, the negative effects of warfare often extend far beyond a weapon's direct, immediate impact. Nonetheless, there is still too little attention for longer-term, indirect, and sometimes non-physical impact of certain weapons and strategies in military training, operations and evaluations. This recommendations brief provides context to the topic, and contains a number of recommendations for military actors on how to prevent, minimise or mitigate harmful reverberating effects of their use of force on civilians. The recommendations are based on discussions during the various sessions of the conference.

Human Security Survey outcomes 2020: Jonglei, South Sudan

November 12, 2020

In July 2020, 8 enumerators conducted 468 surveys in Jonglei, South Sudan. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, several measures were taken to minimize the risk of infection during the enumerator training and data collection, such as the use of face masks, regular hand disinfection, no hand shaking, and maintaining 2 meters distance at all times.

Civilians were asked about the nature of security threats they face, and the impact this has on their daily lives and their expectations for the future. This infographic reflects the summarized outcomes of the survey. The research method used is called the Human Security Survey (HSS). The HSS is developed by PAX's Protection of Civilians team and includes a series of complementary activities, including population-based research, community engagement, and advocacy.

Seeing Through the Rubble

The civilian impact of the use of explosive weapons in the fight against ISIS

October 26, 2020

This joint report by the PAX Humanitarian Disarmament Team and the monitoring organization Airwars demonstrates the dire and long lasting impact on civilians of the recent international coalition’s campaign in Mosul, Raqqa and Hawijah and calls for stronger international commitment against the use of explosive weapons in populated areas. The analysis goed beyond the weapons' direct impact, studying too their indirect and longer-term negative effects on civilians.

Transparent reporting on civilian casualties (Dutch)

PAX briefing paper

October 5, 2020

This briefing paper was prepared by PAX in anticipation of a parliamentary debate on new transparency measures around reporting on civilian casualties from Dutch military action. The paper explains the shortcomings of the proposed measures and outlines its recommendations for improved practice. It is only available in Dutch.

Civilian harm tracking and investigation

Challenges and opportunities identified in contemporary literature

July 10, 2020

This paper follows up on the main findings of the literature study into civilian harm tracking tools and investigation mechanisms (published May 2020). It finds that the current state of tracking and investigation practices appears compromised by three interrelated challenges: A lack of universally adopted policies and standardized operational practices hampers effectiveness of civilian harm tracking; contemporary warfare’s increasing ‘remoteness’ presents new challenges that have yet to be addressed; a lack of transparency around the processing of civilian harm claims – characteristic of many militaries – further aggravates these shortcomings

A River of Death -- Arabic version

How oil pollution is impacting health and livelihoods in conflict-affected north east Syria

July 2, 2020

A River of Death shows how persistent pollution from a degrading oil facility has led to tens-of-thousands of barrels of oil flowing into canals and creeks, and ending up in a 160km long river. Through open-source investigation, remote sensing and local partners, this research demonstrates how the years-long pollution of the river has serious health and environmental implications for the thousands of Syrian families spread across 200 communities living along the riverbed, affecting tens of thousands of hectares of agricultural lands and bringing severe risk to drinking water sources through groundwater contamination, as well as potential effects on livestock.

A River of Death

How oil pollution is impacting health and livelihoods in conflict-affected north east Syria

June 30, 2020

A River of Death shows how persistent pollution from a degrading oil facility has led to tens-of-thousands of barrels of oil flowing into canals and creeks, and ending up in a 160km long river. Through open-source investigation, remote sensing and local partners, this research demonstrates how the years-long pollution of the river has serious health and environmental implications for the thousands of Syrian families spread across 200 communities living along the riverbed, affecting tens of thousands of hectares of agricultural lands and bringing severe risk to drinking water sources through groundwater contamination, as well as potential effects on livestock.