New Guidance on How to Integrate a Disability Perspective into Military Manuals

28 June 2021

Our new Military Briefing: Persons with Disabilities and Armed Conflict provides guidance to the armed forces on how to integrate a disability perspective into military manuals and the training of their militaries.

Authored by Alice Priddy, it translates the findings of a larger academic research into practical advice and avenues to incorporate this issue into military operations.

‘Today, most publicly available military manuals do not integrate a disability perspective. Ensuring that they do so is a first and essential step to introduce militaries to the topic and ultimately ensure that armed forces do protect and assist persons with disabilities during armed conflicts’ explains Professor Gloria Gaggioli, Director of the Geneva Academy.

‘We are confident that this will help military legal advisers, military personnel in charge of developing training manuals and training modules for the armed forces, as well as those in charge of designing and conducting operations on the ground to integrate this much-needed and mandatory disability perspective’ she adds.

Introducing Militaries to the Topic and Showing What is at Stake

As shown by our larger academic research, key international humanitarian law (IHL) provisions that serve to minimize the impact of armed conflict – such as the proportionality assessment and advanced effective warnings – are not being applied in a disability-inclusive manner, resulting in persons with disabilities being killed, seriously injured or left behind as families flee armed attacks.

This Military Briefing introduces militaries to this topic by exploring the meaning of disability and the incorrect understandings that must be avoided. It provides a brief overview of the impact of armed conflict on persons with disabilities before moving to the protections afforded to persons with disabilities under IHL.

‘In doing so, we notably focused on effective advance warnings and the treatment of detainees with disabilities to demonstrate what is at stake when militaries do not take a disability-inclusive approach, and how equality in the application of IHL can be achieved’ underlines Professor Gaggioli

El Fasher: Salahdin Abdurrahman Khissan, a 17-years-old blind student, walks with his stick at the Sudanese Association for Disabled People in El Fasher, North Darfur.

Concrete Recommendations

The paper offers a number of concrete recommendations on specific areas, showing the possibility to integrate a disability perspective into military manuals and military operations.

For example, it details the meaning of ‘accessible warnings’ to persons in the vicinity of armed attacks, and sets our feasible measures regarding the treatment of prisoners of war with disability, in line with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).

This Military Briefing was discussed at an online expert seminar co-organized with the International Committee of the Red Cross and Diakonia in March 2021. Insights, in particular from military stakeholders, provided avenues to continue this practice-oriented work via outreach events and targeted discussions with military legal advisers.

MORE ON THIS THEMATIC AREA

Dr Harper at the panel on Afghanistan News

Dr Erica Harper Addresses Afghanistan's Complex Situation and the Role of Investigations at the UN Human Rights Council

19 October 2023

During the latest UN Human Rights Council session, our Head of Research and Policy Studies Dr Erica Harper presented at a side event the situation in Afghanistan.

Read more

A general view of participants during the 54nd session of the Human Rights Council News

New Paper Unlocks the Potential of the UN Human Rights Council in Global Conflict Prevention

3 November 2023

Our new policy brief Delivering the Right to Peace: Towards a Reinforced Role of the Human Rights Council in the UN's Peace and Security Framework delves into the possibilities of enhancing the Human Rights Council's involvement in the UN's peace and security functions.

Read more

Event

Launch – International Humanitarian Law Rules, Controversies, and Solutions to Problems Arising in Warfare, 2nd Edition

9 April 2024, 12:30-14:00

In this launch event, key experts will comment and dialogue with Professor Sassòli on specific aspects of the book, including naval warfare and the law of neutrality, sources of IHL, IHL and human rights, as well as the classification of armed conflict

Read more

Burning oil fields in Kuwait Event

The Prosecution of Ecocide and Other Environmental Crimes: State of the Law and Way(s) Forward

11 April 2024, 12:30-14:00

This IHL Talk will explore various issues related to the prosecution of ecocide and other environmental crimes.

Read more

Afghanistan, Parwan detention facility. Inside a room where detainees of the prison, separated by an acrylic glass, are allowed to meet with their families a couple of times per year with the help of the ICRC employees who facilitate the programme. Short Course

Preventing and Combating Terrorism

25 April - 17 May 2024

This online short course discusses the extent to which states may limit and/or derogate from their international human rights obligations in order to prevent and counter-terrorism and thus protect persons under their jurisdiction.

Read more

A session of the UN Human Rights Council Project

IHL Expert Pool

Started in January 2022

The IHL-EP works to strengthen the capacity of human rights mechanisms to incorporate IHL into their work in an efficacious and comprehensive manner. By so doing, it aims to address the normative and practical challenges that human rights bodies encounter when dealing with cases in which IHL applies.

Read more

Neutrotechology Project

Neurotechnology and Human Rights

Started in August 2023

This project addresses the human rights implications stemming from the development of neurotechnology for commercial, non-therapeutic ends, and is based on a partnership between the Geneva Academy, the Geneva University Neurocentre and the UN Human Rights Council Advisory Committee. 

Read more

Cover Page of Research Brief Publication

Environmental Human Rights as a Tool in Early Warning and Conflict Prevention The Role of the Human Rights Council

published on January 2024

Erica Harper, Baïna Ubushieva

Read more

Cover page of the publication Publication

Delivering the Right to Peace: Towards a Reinforced Role of the Human Rights Council in the UN's Peace and Security Framework

published on October 2023

Erica Harper, Adam Day

Read more