The Global Future of Civilian Protection: Learning from the Gaza Genocide
The significant failure to protect civilians in the most recent conflict in Gaza (2023 onwards) and what has been labeled the ‘rupture’ of the rules-based international order, demands a critical assessment of the future of protection of civilians, as a legal and institutional commitment. This discussion has increased in urgency following the US-Israel war in Iran, involving the same actors deploying the ‘Gaza playbook’ vis-a-vis protecting civilians.
Protection of civilians while anchored in International Humanitarian Law, encompasses all activities aimed at obtaining full respect for the rights of the individual in accordance with relevant bodies of law (i.e. International Human Rights Law, International Humanitarian Law, International Refugee Law), as well as alongside notions of military honour and other ethics. It is a concept applied in situations of conflict to keep civilians from harm.
Protection of civilians in a conflict can be actioned through multiple measures, including conflict prevention, civilian/community-based self-protection, restraint measures in military operations, international and domestic justice processes, ensuring physical safety of civilians and ensuring access to adequate humanitarian assistance.
This roundtable discussion brings together a diverse group of scholars and practitioners to speak to the future of civilian protection based on the lessons from Gaza. They will bring a diversity of perspectives including international law; international peace and security; principled humanitarian action; civil society engagement in political and public spaces (protests, boycotts, legislative initiatives, etc.) and civilian self-protection, based on their academic and/or practice expertise and their lived experience. Details on the presentation focuses can be found in the panelist sections below.
In collaboration with the Centre for Refugee Studies and the Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research, ¿ì²¥ÊÓƵ.
Panelists
Topic Focus: While Israel’s systemic violations of the laws of war in Gaza have resulted in historic arrest warrants against Israeli leaders at the International Criminal Court, third states in the west—including Canada—have largely refrained from taking meaningful action to prevent and punish these acts. How Gaza has shifted state understandings of compliance with IHL?
Dr. Heidi Matthews is Assistant Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School at ¿ì²¥ÊÓƵ, where she co-directs the International and Transnational Law Intensive Program. She researches and teaches in international criminal law, the law of war, and sexuality and the law. Her work theorizes contemporary shifts in the practice and discourse of the global legal regulation of political violence, with particular attention to gender and political theory
Topic focus: Why and how the UN has been sidelined in Gaza and what future role the UN can play in peace and security, human rights and accountability.
Jane Kinninmont is the Chief Executive Officer at the United Nations Association – UK. Prior to this she was the Policy & Impact Director at The European Leadership Network (ELN), where she worked to strengthen the influence, policy relevance and impact of the ELN’s research, convening and networks. Jane’s previous positions also include Associate Director for the Middle East and Africa at the Economist Group and Senior Editor/Economist at the Economist Intelligence Unit. Jane has contributed articles and analysis to a wide range of publications, including the Economist, Financial Times, Newsweek, Guardian and Prospect, and to consultancies and NGOs such as Oxford Analytica and Freedom House.
Topic Focus: The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and by-passing of the established humanitarian system.
Amra is a current PhD candidate at the Department of International Relations ANU and former Rotary Peace Fellow at Uppsala University Sweden (2018-19). Amra brings advanced protection, humanitarian and conflict expertise drawing on 16 years’ professional experience working for the United Nations (UN), the Australian Government and international Non-Government Organisations across a range of crisis contexts and regions. Recent professional positions include Senior Humanitarian Adviser with the Australian Mission to the UN New York (2023) and Head of Program for the World Food Program Pacific (2020-21), recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (2020). Amra brings post graduate qualifications in anthropology, peace and conflict, law and qualitative research to her analytical work.
Topic Focus: Reflection on the unprecedented scale of witnessing and solidarity during the Gaza genocide, asking what it means to refuse silence, and whether this moment can reshape the future of civilian protection beyond crisis. With global civil society contributing to transforming protection of civilians into a widely shared moral and political demand.
Dalia El Farra is a Palestinian, justice-oriented educator, writer, and organizer. Her work centers on public education, accountability, and the careful use of narrative to challenge distortion and erasure, particularly in relation to Palestine. She holds a Master of Education (MEd) in Social Justice from the University of Toronto and is a Certified Canadian Inclusion Practitioner (CCIPâ„¢) with the Canadian Centre for Diversity and Inclusion.
Topic Focus: The critical role played by healthcare workers and the wider Palestinian community in spotlighting the harm – model for replication elsewhere?
Dr. Yipeng Ge is a primary care physician and public health practitioner based on the traditional, unceded, and unsurrendered territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg. In his clinical practice, he works in family medicine practice and refugee health at a community health centre. He has worked on and studied the structural and colonial determinants of health in both the settler colonial contexts of so-called Canada and occupied Palestine.
Sarah Khan is an international lawyer and former UN international civil servant with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). She has worked in multiple crisis contexts including, Afghanistan, Libya, Myanmar, Somalia (covering also Yemen situation), Sudan and Syria. She has also worked at Headquarters level in Geneva at the Global Protection Cluster covering various conflict and internal displacement situations, including Central African Republic, Colombia, Iraq, Israel/OPT and the Philippines.
Sarah completed her Research LLM program at Osgoode Hall Law School in June 2025, where she trained in various research methods. Currently, Sarah is a community fellow at the Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research, ¿ì²¥ÊÓƵ and an independent consultant with an interest in practice and politics of protecting civilians and displaced populations in violent conflict settings.
RSVP
