Breakfast Briefing with Jonathan Somer
Humanitarian Exemptions: Mitigating the Unintended Consequences of Counter-Terror Measures and Sanctions
Abstract:
Over the past 20 years, states and international organisations have increasingly established counter-terror (CT) measures as a means of ensuring security and protecting populations. Such measures may aim to criminalise or otherwise prevent acts that ‘support’ or are ‘for the benefit of’ persons/entities participating in the commission of terrorist acts, often without a specific intent to further the terrorist act. Sanctions regimes also restrict engagement with persons/entities, and are implemented in support of foreign and security policy objectives, such as conflict prevention, democracy, rule of law and human rights. However, CT measures and sanctions have also impacted on the ability of impartial humanitarian actors to provide humanitarian relief for the victims of armed conflict, in accordance with international humanitarian law (IHL). Humanitarian exemptions are a ‘smart’ means by which counter-terror and sanctions objectives can be reconciled with the protections of IHL.
About the speaker:
Jonathan Somer is currently Legal Advisor at the Danish Red Cross. Prior to joining the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, he worked with Geneva Call and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. As a consultant he has advised, among others, the United Nations and the Government of Denmark. He holds an LLM from the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights, and has been awarded the Henry Dunant Prize for his legal scholarship on non-state armed groups. Jonathan is also a member of the Harvard-based Counterterrorism and Humanitarian Engagement Working Group.
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