Good evening everybody. Thank you for joining us here tonight for a panel discussion on the roots of behavior in war update Unfortunately, we seem to be competing with a free cocktail upstairs. So we're never bound to win that one and So we're not going to wait any longer for people to join us This is the 10th event public event that the ICRC has held within the Conference cycle of generating respect for the law. Obviously, this is very important conference cycle as we are seeing a Lot of violations of international humanitarian law around the world and as we search for ways in which we can try to Improve compliance with the law So that's what we're here to do today with the study that for those of you who were here last week I gave a small discussion about about our new Project, which is actually we've renamed the roots of restraint in war Which is trying to look at not just why violations occur but trying to have a bit more of a focus on What actually restrains people from committing violations? I'm working on this policy on this project with My fellow research coordinator Brian McQuinn and with Benjamin Eckstein and we are in the prevention department of the ICRC So for those of you who must remember that the first roots of behavior in war study was published in 2004 and it had a very important impact on the policy at the ICRC up until that time the predominant approach to to trying to generate respect for the law was through disseminating knowledge of the war talking to different groups Non-state armed groups and state groups about international humanitarian law But the roots of behavior in war study Suggested that there needs to be far more done than just talking about the law It wasn't enough to know the law to respect it and so the policy change was to go from from this dissemination approach much more into the trying to insert or encourage states and non-state actors to insert international humanitarian law into the doctrine of of codes of conduct or of state armed groups laws and to encourage it in training and also to try to encourage the formation of compliance mechanisms To punish any violations and this was the main policy that the ICRC has followed over the last 12 years But even at the time when this was launched the study was launched there was the question that arose which was that this process of Doctrine training and compliance mechanisms Presupposed that an armed group has a vertical structure through which we can feed this kind of influence and we were seeing even 12 years ago that there was an emergence of groups with much less vertical hierarchical structure and more groups coming out with perhaps a loose alliance and And not this structure. So the question was raised even at that time. What do we do about those groups? So this is the one of the questions that the that the roots of restraint in war will be looking at and And so I'll turn to to Brian McQuinn who has Really come up with most of the methodology that we are going to use in this project and and he will then be interviewing our Fabulous group of researchers that we have brought together to help ICRC Look at this question the this is a bit of experiment for ICRC to go down this path of Having a mix between people from ICRC and people from the outside From academia mainly looking at these questions but all of our people are experts in their field and we were very very fortunate when we put out our call for proposals that we had such amazing response from all parts of the world and And these were the people that we chose to work with us on this question. So over to you, Brian Thank You Fiona. So before we sort of go through and start talking to our various researchers It's important that the format we have here is to try to sort of get as much discussion as we can So we're going to sort of refrain from having everyone do 10 15 minute talks and to try to make it as interactive as possible But to begin with I think it's important to sort of understand at least from our perspective How this project is framed and so it's really framed around a relatively simple puzzle We see some state and non-standard groups who have a great deal of restraint when dealing with civil civilian populations for example But we are struggling and I think these researchers are really on the cutting edge to start explaining why we see restraint in some groups And not others and that for us sort of frames very simply what ultimately we're trying to address because for ICRC If we can better understand what are the mechanisms for that restraint We are able to then have influence over those groups or at least be able to encourage slight changes in those behavior now as Fiona suggested one of the critical issues that ICRC has always worked on as groups that are are vertically organized The problem is is that as some of our Research will talk about Increasing in the groups that we deal with are not vertically organized We see groups that are horizontally organized loose alliances as Fiona said and so they don't have codes of conduct They don't have these structures that we normally would are used to working with so what does ICRC do? What does the international community do and so in some ways? This has sort of deeply informed how we are going to approach this research So two of the research streams are focusing on vertically organized groups groups like state Militaries and non-standard groups that that have those vertical structures that are actually quite similar to state militaries And so in each one of them brings something quite unique and is actually advancing our understanding even of those types of groups We've worked with for so long Two of the other researchers are looking more at groups that are horizontally organized to begin to start understanding How do those norms form? How do we begin to start seeing those norms of restraint within those groups and to begin to start realizing that maybe ICRC has to Maybe look at different approaches different tools in different ways of understanding how these groups create norms Because we often think of these groups as being unstructured or sort of wildly out of control But as we're going to hear a little bit tonight that very rarely is the case It's just that maybe the norms of restraint are a little bit differently constructed than then we sort of often see in the west And finally, we're very lucky to have Oliver Kaplan as well who's done a great deal of work on how Communities actually can impact non-standard groups So often in cases where you have these horizontal groups How do communities actually have influence and each one of these research in some way has brought something quite unique that That makes them kind of on the edge of academia and in so doing will sort of advance our practice And so what we want to do is sort of go through each one of them and talk a little bit about how each one contributes to this puzzle That we're trying to unpack now as you can see we have five streams of research So we can't cover everything in the world We are trying to cover quite a bit of geography and and quite a bit of different issues But obviously that we have to be also very humble in what we can accomplish But our goal is to try to advance as much as possible what we can with with the brilliant minds that we happen to have up here So I'm going to start with the state military And Andrew perhaps you can talk a little bit about Some of the innovations that you're seeing in some of your your research and and what that sort of sheds light on as far as groups That are vertically organized as the US state military that you've studied And before I start to I'd like to thank everyone for your attendance tonight I know you have other demands on your time the fact that there are so many people here who are so interested in Humanitarian law the ICRC's work is really encouraging So I want to thank you for taking time out of your busy days to help us in this journey of trying to figure out ways that the ICRC can best impact Outcomes and protect civilians of civilians in conflict. So thank you So as Brian mentioned, I look specifically in my previous research and ongoing research at the US Army I'm looking particularly at what is the impact of training and military culture of armed groups and how that can impact the The preferences and the behavior of armed combatants as they how they conduct themselves in war how they treat civilians how they think about civilians It's quite interesting military to study The US military has is interesting for a number of reasons one. We'd spend in some very difficult counter-insurgencies in the last 10 15 years or so some very difficult battle spaces But at the same time it's a military that at least it attempts to take IHL very seriously and oftentimes will take those ideas of integrating the law Into the doctrine into the command structure into the rules of compliance within the military And so provides for us a very interesting test probably one of the toughest tests that have been Constructed to date where a military that takes IHL seriously or attempts to for the most part not always successfully But certainly attempts to is put into a long-term counter-insurgencies Counter-insurgency environment and how do these combatants conduct themselves on the battle space And so for my research what I find is I look at some of the training institutions and it appears that actually Somewhat to the surprise maybe some people outside of the IHL IHL world That training actually appears to have an effect it actually More intense training can actually change the preferences the mindset of combatants how they think about civilians on the battlefield How they think about the ways they should conduct themselves and Actually and there's an initial evidence that it seems to indicate that this can actually impact how they perform on the battlefield as well And so as I continue with this research, I'll dig into more about what how are the actual mechanisms affecting combatants? What are the the ways and the contexts and the conditions under which these mechanisms can impact to what extent? What are the limits that maybe law has in its attempt to try to limit? Conflict and casualties of civilians in conflict Thank you Andrew So staying on the sort of theme of vertical groups Go to Francisco who studies and has historically studied for quite some time some quite amazing research in Colombia Who in the case of FARC, which is a very vertical organization has some interesting insights into the role of ideology and various different doctrine and how it plays out within groups and how it does shift The seemingly the behavior of groups. So talk a little bit about about how that plays out Okay, you know first of all, thank you for the invitation and for the This this job that you are doing which is so important As many of you might know the Colombian war is a very protracted war and then you have the opportunity to see how do Rules of conduct arise behave and disappear Sometimes to be replaced by other ones which are worse or by other ones which are better so It is very important to of course nobody can claim that He or she has complete clarity about this to understand the Factors which influence the development and the trajectory of these rules of conduct especially in a highly hierarchical and structured groups like the FARC or like the other guerrilla that I will be studying which is the ELN so for example, you have some institutions which directly influence behavior like prohibitions coming from ideology for example the prohibition to rape in the FARC if you are caught red-handed raping then you are due to To to be subject to the death penalty, but also some Institutional devices that can affect behavior indirectly for example recruitment. So if To put the obvious example, these are highly feminized groups. So is if you recruit many women as fighters then probably the Approach the routine approach towards sexual violence will be different than in a whole male group so Going to ideology Of course, not all the things that are written in the doctrine in the explicit doctrine, etc. etc Are Operational there are some prohibitions that are not put into practice because of instrumental decisions or of the commanders, etc, etc but in the idea ideology especially the operational idea ideology the way in which people are Trained drilled, etc. etc plays a fundamental role in the way in which they behave vis-à-vis civilians And there are a lot of examples about that We can come back to those in the second round So if you want to sort of think of this as as how we're thinking of the norms of restraint sort of the individual So the peer influence the organizational influence and then sort of external or society influences This works for the two first speakers where we have all of those levels The problem is for groups that are not necessarily organized vertically There isn't necessarily the organization you have informal groups and formal codes of conduct So how do those norms form because they have those norms and but they're often perceived as being completely out of control or Unstructured and and all these sort of perceptions that we have But part of the study is going to be studying some of those groups to see if is actually some of those assumptions And so I'll turn it over to Naomi to talk a little bit about South Sudan I only spent five years there as part of her field research and so brings an extraordinary wealth of Both the newer and the Dinka communities and and how they sort of structure themselves and how these groups sort of form when they do So talk a little bit about about those experiences Yeah, so my research has been amongst the kind of cattle keepers and the cattle guard of the West and Dinka and newer so groups in South Sudan and And these are kind of armed combatants who whose main job is to guard the cattle They are based in cattle camps and and they are guardians of their herds But also with that the community they are incredibly embedded in in the communities that they come from and sometimes live amongst But also the the cattle often belong to those communities So they have a kind of defense role and that's very much how they perceive themselves But but as was said they are they are seen as at the margins in many ways their pastoralist communities They are very far from the center of the state. They're very far from the structures of the state They I guess for a long time We've known that they haven't had a clear kind of leadership leadership structure in within those communities And therefore they often seem unstructured and there has been a lot of violence amongst them in recent years in the last couple of Years, I'm sure you know there's been incredible violence in South Sudan But even since 2005 and the apparent peace between the North and the South There was still a lot of violence and a lot of that was reported in terms of cattle raiding and between cattle keepers So it was very easy to you for this kind of image to be conjured of this Inherently violent nature of these cattle keepers and that they were without order and that they were somehow Anarchic but my research definitely shows there's a lot of order that there are a lot of There's a lot of restraint in these communities There are laws and norms that people are willing to adhere to and what's really interesting is how that's changed over time and and how that works how These different kind of norms are negotiated and able to stick even through times of incredible violence and even through times of state change And and you see institutions continuing over time and whether South Sudan is independent So while not and then becoming or whether war is happening or not So for example since the 90s one thing that these cattle keepers have had to deal with is the coming of the gun the gun has become much more prevalent in these cattle camps and During the 90s so the kind of it became very common to own it in a k-47 and then in more recent years has been an incredible kind of range of weapons visible in some of these cattle camps and that's a massive dilemma of Does this mean the end of kind of order because even within a small group if an individual has a gun Does that mean you kind of somehow lose control and they are empowered to do whatever they want to do But but somehow and and they've tried different ways of dealing with this and kind of keeping order So you see for example Different punishments based on whether you kill by other means or whether you kill with a gun So for example amongst the Western newer you'll find a hundred cows instead of 51 cows Or you have to pay that in compensation if you kill with a gun So one way of restraining violence through the gun and therefore somehow kind of keeping it more controlled or Amongst the dinker I've seen even for people shooting a gun in the air So not at all in aggression but being fined a cow for doing that just because it was seen as the kind of misuse of a weapon So even even the gun the ways that kind of local community leaders and leaders within the cattle camper able to Control and these new means of violence and new modes of war. I guess Thank you very much Naomi We're also very lucky to have the burglar foundation and and the team that that The seers going to represent tonight and Christophe is in the corner was also part of the team For for us and obviously for ICRC We deal with a lot of groups who sort of don't necessarily come from from either Africa Or the US or from Latin America? And so groups that sort of have some sort of Islamist ideology or use that in some ways as as the sort of political ideology or the religious ideology which they Derived some of their cohesion or their ideas or their their visions of of their actions So it became very important for us to also do work in Afghanistan and the team at bergoff have sort of Accomplished what most people would say is impossible and conducted thousands of interviews in Taliban controlled areas Understanding how the the various different groups there both the Taliban and others Function both within their their various different alliances But also with the communities that are that are interacting with those groups and with the international community on a regular basis so perhaps you can talk a little bit about Sort of your work there and and how that sort of plays out and in both sort of vertical and horizontal ways well first of all Let me let me thank you and thank you Brian. I just wanted to Say this is just to start with I know I've said that today to you personally, but As a kid, so I'm a born and raised Afghan and I've sort of really you know During the whole seven seven war process So I've sort of grown up in war and and the one thing that's always represented good to me is the the ICRC logo I remember it even as a kid and so it's an incredible pleasure to be here among that and to contribute To the to the great objectives that you're trying to achieve Having said that I think It's it's a little fair because I'm I'm of course. I'm representing the team, but we're working in Afghanistan since since 2003 I have really joined the team in the last two years, but we have another colleague who is not Who's not here today young cooler and and because of ghost any who are who's setting over there They have really pioneered this method of mixed method approach what we call because we as a team do not believe in this Chinese wall between qualitative and quantitative Analysis so where we we actually go Where we do our our surveys and our our quantitative surveys. We also really Collects detailed profiles of all the levels That's that we go in To research so that will be villages and in a cluster of villages and then at the district level. So we really collect detailed socio political and Demographic information all of that so that we really know what the context is We've conducted this research in three provinces in the north North of Afghanistan That includes 25 25 districts in 2003 we had a small set of districts, but then from 2010 onwards We really have this 25 districts that amounts to about 254 villages in about 10% of those villages are completely controlled by By by the Taliban mainly so not not really the state and another 15% of them are hugely contested Contested areas We just wanted to Sort of put that out there that that even in and very difficult context Such as Afghanistan it is actually possible To do to do this research, of course The team had to go through incredible pain in order to make sure that the quality of the data and then there's a long story I don't want to take everybody's time there But but yeah, but there are a lot of Complications in terms of and we're very lucky because we have a lucky we have a local partner Who's helping us and in that survey and so a lot goes into negotiating Access to these to these villages and and security guarantees and and so on and I think at the end we got What what we What we aim to achieve despite an incredibly complex context that I think It's pretty impressive That is of course for that to you guys not Thank you So the sort of last person to speak if we sort of did the two vertical and two horizontal and obviously this is a Continuum and and groups fall between these things Is is Oliver's work and his book that's actually this year isn't it coming up with Cambridge Press? Looking at how communities can impact groups and we often focus about how the international community focuses on Changing that the perspectives and the behavior of group But often the role of communities is not not fully explored And so this is a little bit of all of us work on the cutting the side of you Just talk a little bit about how how that's played out. Thanks I just like to say it's a real honor to be here and to be able to share my findings and our findings With you all and I've done a lot of work in in Columbia in particular And I've come across a number of communities that have had support from the Red Cross and I CRC And I know they were always grateful for that support So it's really a pleasure to be here to share to share with you And so the main focus of my research has been looking at a problem that civilians in conflict zones often find themselves in And that is that they get caught between multiple armed actors or one armed actor and They often don't have outside support and the question arises. What are they able to do and in particular? What are they able to do? And non-violently so without taking up arms without becoming an arms bearer or a a combatant where There may be greater justification to target them And so I look at these organizational procedures and what I've found in my research is that the better organized communities are Primarily, I've done this in Colombia But other looked at other countries as well the better organized They are the less violence they tend to suffer and so then I've tried to trace out what some of the Organizational mechanisms are at play and when you think about this, this is really a remarkable Puzzle and it's not obvious because these unarmed civilians are essentially up against heavily armed and often heavily violent violent prone combatants and so the question is how are they do this and how are they able to Protect themselves and really it comes down to this this variation in the social landscape and I've documented a few ways that this this happens and one of the Arguments I've made is that in some cases civilians are able to what I call nudge arm groups or try to push them in the right Direction to reform some of their norms and I argue that they're able to do this in cases I know they're even some cases where the ICRC can't reach even though the ICRC has in fact quite quite a broad reach Compared to many other humanitarian organizations, but even in some of those cases I The ICRC is not able to to reach or push the principles of IHL And you see communities themselves Trying to push beneficial norms within armed groups and trying to play on the the fissures And ruptures within armed groups to get them less violent members of those groups to have greater power And they often can do this by by protesting or sending some some strong collective signal That they're not happy with how they're being treated by armed groups and then therefore trying to nudge them in a better direction Another way that I've seen In terms of a causal mechanism would be That how different communities have vouched for people who were under threat So using the community to generate credible information to verify whether someone is for example threatened as being a Collaborator or not and trying to clear their their good name or at least buy them a second chance And so I've done some various empirical tests of these different processes And really one of the challenges that this research faces and why this is also not obvious is that? Conflict itself can shape community structures as well, right? And so you can see community If you see for example, if you see communities Working to try to protect themselves and you see it looks like it's successful The question is whether or not they were just happened to be in peaceful conditions Or whether they actually had a history of violence and yet we're somehow able to deal with that And so as part of the field work that I did in Colombia And also the historical work so I really went back and tried to understand the history And I went back over 60 year period to try to figure out where do local institutions arise And is that driven by the conflict or not? And the thing that I could tell is that if anything these local community organizations for example community councils Or if anything in places that historically had more conflict not less conflict And so in fact these communities are Operating in places that were not just safe, you know safe neighborhoods, but actually under under a threat of violence And so as I mentioned, this is a phenomenon that I became very surprised to see occurring in many countries Not just Colombia, but I mean if you if you read the newspaper carefully You end up seeing examples around the world on all continents of civilians non-violently working to for self-protection and You know the nice thing about being able to share this with the ICRC is the protection of civilian populations group That you have here is really you know the forefront of this And I think that some of my research would hopefully have some helpful implications Both how the ICRC can support communities that are trying to do this kind of work And also I think the ICRC could learn some lessons about how communities have managed on that on their own A lot of these communities have positioned themselves as neutral either Overtly or or more quietly and it's a real interesting question that they're kind of in some ways mimicking An ICRC approach, but how do they actually go about doing this in some cases differently than what the ICRC is doing? And so I think there are a lot of lessons to exchange Thank you very much Oliver So we're just going to do one more round quickly of questions and then we'll throw it throw it to the audience Andrew just will go around one of the things that your research starts to suggest and this is really important for our fuzz Which is our the people in ICRC who? Directly engage with with military Armed forces is do we have yet some ideas or some clues as to which parts of as you said the intent more intense training? Seems to have a greater impact on on the perceptions Do you have a sense yet of which elements of that actually become more critical than others yet? So that's a it's a great question and in that sense It's sort of the key question right that not only does ICRC want to know But many our military groups around the world for how can they better train their members to behave better on the battlefield while still? Conducting themselves honorably and so through surveys with a number of us army personnel and interviews and Conducting focus groups with us army personnel. I was able to really get into try to get inside their minds and ask them You know, what are the influences? What are the things that most impacted? them and shaping how they they fight on the battlefield and how they Think about civilians and how they conduct themselves and again and again and again they said that Many this soldier said the army does a lot of things well some of things it doesn't do quite so well is is the sort of standard Typical training by PowerPoint. They have a term for it in the military. It's called death by power power point And I'm sure our students for those of your students. You know what this is right? You're sitting a lecture the professor is Blathering on and on and and you know within ten minutes you've lose focus and sure got it and unfortunately at that Oftentimes this is how IHL is taught to students. It's just you know a set of principles Particularly for the members of the American military. It doesn't apply to them directly It only IHL only applies to the UCMJ through their military code of justice and it's sort of abstract You know if they got it sounds nice, but it really doesn't have very much impact on them What does have an impact on them though is actually talking to interacting with soldiers other soldiers who have been in that context Who understand what it's like to be at war to be under fire to have lost troops and to know to have them Tell them what what's the right thing to do and why? And oftentimes for the US military. It's because it's this social identity that they tried to inculcate that They perform better than that that they sort of this idea of the Warriors honor idea from from years past that it's this idea that as warriors they conduct themselves honorably the army does a fairly good job of Trying to inculcate it or at least explicitly doing so Some cases it works some cases it doesn't it does not but the soldiers have said that it's this idea of having interactive training that it works with other soldiers is Involved in scenarios involved in exercises that's really integrated into the way that they train And think about going to war that has an extreme effect on on their Thinking on the battlefield some of the most extreme cases actually that I come across which really surprised me They do a number of interactive video online Exercises they do seminars will they'll get the soldiers together. They'll set up some sort of ethical dilemma about civilians they'll use the interactive video that actually has a Video from a soldier who's been on the battlefield talk about what he did and then the soldiers will have to get together and talk about whether That was the right decision. Do they make sense to them? And the army even goes so far and this this is at the US Military Academy at West Point They even go so far as to have video teleconferences off oftentimes with soldiers who are downrange in Afghanistan and Iraq Young captains young lieutenants who can link back and talk to the cadets at the US Military Academy About the experiences that they're experiencing at that moment about why ethics are important But why following the laws and is important And so that really has made an impression on a number of the soldiers that I talked with and I think As I dig into this further it seems that this interactive nature of training this idea of adopting this identity of culture of ethics culture of following the laws of war Really seems to have an impact a lasting impact on on soldiers perceptions As you can see I mean obviously the most of the field research for this study still has yet to happen It's going to be happening this year But there's sort of little clues based on on people's previous research as to maybe some of the direction that it's going Obviously, we cannot decide beforehand what research results are going to get But at the same time you can begin to start seeing why these individuals were selected to be here because the nature of their research Really allows us to begin to start becoming very practical in some of the implications for For our work and for how in the case of foz it goes about doing its work and in our engagement Where do we put our limited resources over time both with state and non-state armed groups? And it kind of it makes me think Francisco if I can ask you the next question this week as we've been talking through things One of the things that we've talked about and you've raised a few times is the idea of sort of changing patterns of violence And and how that has changed over time and a little bit of what that tells us about Arm groups and about these sort of norms of restraint and and how that gives us some insights into maybe Where sort of the leverage points might be in some of those those those codes of conduct or doctrine that these armed groups are Sort of living and implementing as you talked about earlier in a war like the Colombian war, which is very protracted and Became very hard at several points You can see that it's a fact of life that there is variation despite Visions both in the media and theories etc. Etc. That all these groups are Equally bad or that they are evil etc. You can find Big big differences in their patterns of violence Regarding the type of price of crimes they commit Regarding the frequencies of those time of those crimes Regarding their targets, so there is a huge variation And the question is how can we explain that variation? So that variation is related to the type of armed competition, of course and to a lot of Instrumental factors, but also two normative factors to the doctrine of those groups to the conviction of some of those groups at least that This kind of thing is not done by us So there is a normative core there which has to be fleshed out but Which is probably there that goes beyond purely instrumental behavior and that has to be better understood So so in that regard so for example some groups massacred a lot and others much less Even within the family for example of leftist guerrillas some were Indulged very much in massacres and others practically did not commit massacres The same can be said about kidnapping etc. Etc. So regarding that there There's a couple of pieces of bad news but also of good news So I good for I give first the bad news because the good news can only be understood after the bad So the so the good the bad news is And of course, I'm sure all of you are aware of them and is that groups can violent Violate their own explicit rules and they can violate them Grasly and we need to understand why and in which circumstances they do that second that groups can Let's say operate according to much worse rules in situations, especially of very severe competition with others and Finally, and this is a point in which I intend to put a lot of emphasis that not all good things come together so some Very good rules that prevent some crimes may boost other ones So so so this is a really bad News, but on the other hand what the Colombian experience shows regarding this point is that groups are permeable to positive influences So a first example and or a first dimension is politics so when Indulging in some type of crime creates a big political conflict and undermines legitimacy as we were speaking in Not on structural legitimacy, but it Legitimacy vis-a-vis some of their key audiences the group can stop committing that kind of crime. So for example the blowing of oil ducts by the ELA in Colombia was one of their fundamental what one of their core crimes actually Because it was it allowed them to extort companies and at the same time to make the political point regarding Oil nationalism, etc. etc was suspended practically in the mid 90s after they Became aware that the political costs were huge The other issue is or the other dimension is that they are permeable also to ideas especially when International discourses intersect with their own ideology So for example some of these groups actually have started to create these cruises internally about international humanitarian Humanitarian law etc creating a perceptible and Invisible change in some of their behavior. Maybe not the the core of their behavior, but but some of their behavior in third a Some of these groups would be willing to discuss explicitly Politically with other actors about their behavior sometimes even saying Clearly we do not accept International humanitarian law, but let's let let us discuss it like the case of the FARC with the recruitment of child soldiers So so there is a real permeability which in some sense Yeah, Trump's the bad news That showed that Things are complicated. Yeah, thank you very much Francisco Perhaps we can move to to Naomi in these cases as Francisco explained you have these codes of conduct You have these sort of dialogue that you can have with the group over the nature of what those codes are But a lot of the groups that you work with and are very familiar with don't have necessarily those sort of explicit codes So can you talk maybe a little bit about how violence is curtailed in those environments? If you don't have these sort of sort of formalized mechanisms, but that doesn't mean those mechanisms don't exist and often quite, you know effective ones at that yeah, and So I think I mean one big challenge in the last few years as well has been just the extent of violence that they've seen so I think amongst lots of these communities There is a normative code and even a code that's kind of upheld in customary laws and upheld through cattle camp leaders through chiefs through local religious leaders profits and amongst the dinka that something called the spear master But in these times in these last decades again, it's been a very protracted conflict and and decades of Extreme violence and even in the last few years it feels sometimes like they've seen everything They can see from the killing of children to the destruction of property to large-scale Displacements and and in that context, how can you still hold on? To a belief that there's any moral limit to to the violence that you see it just seems that anything is permissible Anything will happen the people who are committing these These incredibly violent Crimes that doesn't seem to be any justice. So how in these contexts? There's no there's there's very little corpability At a large kind of national scale for what's happening in South Sudan so far So in that context, how can you try and restrain your combatants? How at a local level can you suggest there are moral limits to what you're doing and in South Sudan? They do seem to have emerged some key kind of figures that are somehow between The national level and the local community that maybe somehow mediate that relationship of violence Or deal with it and sometimes challenge it that they are these local figures who are able to contest the the power of kind of violence with the gun and One thing I've looked at quite a lot is it's the growth in number of newer profits So newer profits have fascinated people for about a hundred years or more ever since kind of foreigners went to the southern Sudan and newer profits are People who have a divinity a divinity has come and dwells within them lives within them They are a vessel for that divinity and they believe therefore that they mediate on behalf of the divinity But have that power and but these are incredibly respected people in these communities and when the divinity first comes That will be tested within the community people will doubt it people will question it But if they are come to be accepted as authorities and hold us up that divinity they can They can have incredible power and sway and and some of these profits have Gained quite a reputation of being creators of violence. So one prophetess actually she's a female prophet Amongst the Western newer who I've I've met a few times. She she resisted government arrest She's been accused of organizing large violent raids But she's also and created a lot of restraint amongst her combat amongst people who follow her So she has Re-initiated courts and we and at the time there was a lot of Revenge between clans and families and sections of the newer And revenge can very much take place against civilians. It's not revenge doesn't happen against necessarily the specific person Who committed a crime or an offense? It will take place against their extended family any possibly anyone within their family as a legitimate target So it doesn't matter at all whether they've been involved in the combat so she tried to curtail this by reinstating the kind of exchange of cattle and and punishing that spiritually if they didn't comply and People people have followed this and she's been incredibly popular people have gone to her to hear to have cases heard and to resolve them kind of peacefully through compensation instead of through revenge killings Even in the last year she's tried to bring commissioners of the warring parties together at a local level And which is something which the international community has obviously been struggling to bring their leaders together And she somehow managed to do that in the village in a way that we hardly see at all But she's these are very important figures and they do mediate this relationship They challenge this kind of relentless Uncontrolled violence at a national level, but they also have this kind of community relationship and way to mediate between them Yeah Thank you So perhaps I'm sure if I can jump to you because it's sort of in a similar vein Some of the research that you guys have done which I think under the circumstances is quite extraordinary But beginning to see how there are shifts that are taking place and some of the groups that you're looking at Maybe you can talk a little bit about some of those shifts and some of the clues that are beginning to show us to maybe why that's happening so One of the things that that really came up in our research is You have these local defense initiatives created in Afghanistan and this is mainly starting in 2009 when the Taliban insurgency was sort of really But you know reemerging in and really strengthening him to the extent that at least one of the northeastern Cities in Afghanistan Kunduz was on the verge of of really falling and and and usually states And well states like Afghanistan, but but a lot of other states around the world So we have a situation of limited statehood. I mean obviously you can't You don't really have the capacity to then utilize Your national security forces so that being police or or the army to actually fight this So one of one of the mechanisms that then is widely used is this these self defense And militia so-called militias right so these are local They're created in in in areas that are heavily affected by by the insurgency And the assumption is of course because they really know the area they have the local knowledge and they could fight off Fight of insurgents and at the end contribute to local and to local security and two of these structures that that emerged initially We had a structure called the the Arba quays And the idea really transfers from south of Afghanistan to to north And in the south of course you have a tribal structure and there's a historical precedence to to these To these structures where communities organize Militias in order to To defend the community The idea was kind of supported by it was it was mainly really driven by by the US military But of course with with with consent from from from the Afghan government But then in 2000 sort of towards 2011 They started to really formalize so the so the Afghan states really started to to kind of give it a formalized structure And so the the in in some of the cases these former Arba quays were transformed into what is today called the Afghan local police and And and and so you know But but even to this day, of course, you still have locations where you have a coexistence of both And in some cases you have only the Afghan local police and and others at the Arba quay and one of the And we we sort of picked this up and and and and research and what we what we really found was in terms of some of the Key results and in relation to because wanted to see the effects that these two different groups because they come from the same context the same You know, they're created for the same reason But it's it's and and and and so in our data in our data the data that we had collected two of the key Indicators that we from our perspective we believe are good indicators for IHL violations is fear of these local militias and the extent to which they're perceived to contribute to to to to local security and And and three key results that we had were that the the Afghan local police installed far little fear as opposed to these to these very non formal Arba quays and That they were perceived to to to really contribute to local Security a lot more positively. Whereas the Arba quays were not really perceived so so the the factor on which they really varied Was this formalization? It seemed to really make huge difference and there this the second key result was that And the the ALP's really seem to to also strengthen local governance And and for for instance, and we have a lot of Indicators for how we measure governance and I would be happy to answer questions with but I don't want to go into those details But just as an example What one of the things that the the Afghan local police brought seems seems to to bring for instance in terms of local governance There's a conflict resolution conflict resolution is a huge issue especially in rural Afghanistan, so justice is a very valuable commodity and It seems that the the Afghan local police has had a very positive effect In in the sense that these sort of local Development councils that were that were mainly created by by the or driven by the World Bank copied from other contexts The way that they were resolving local conflicts Because it seemed that they actually brought that enforcement capacity to it Which which but then of course that was still not the case in relation to Arba quays in the third key and result and that's and that connects a little bit to And to to what Oliver talked about and in the context of Columbia and that is that The the negative effect though that these Arba keys have it seems that it really disappears in communities that are Better organized and are more cohesive They don't then seem to have that Negative impact anymore. So the the cohesion and the better organization of the community seems to really then Moderate the negative effects of of these informal militias Thank you very much for that and obviously this has sort of application to a lot of the work that we do and understanding where to sort of Access that perhaps is the final question before we open it up to everybody else Oliver you talked a little bit about as as the sheer about how sort of communities impact arm groups But one of the things that we were talking with this week that I thought was really interesting is how we understand how arm groups perceive communities and in the influence that they have so to flip it around on this other side and In some of the work that you've done to sort of better understand that so that we Can sort of open up that black box of how those decision-making and how those norms form and and to understand those different Levels the individuals that appear in organizational community how they interact in reality and in certain contexts All right, so I think the key outcome that we all really care about is what are these arm decision-makers doing with with all these Factors that are influencing them and how can we really understand their decisions behind whether to use violence or be more restrained? And so within my the context of my research. I've developed a concept called the sensitivity if you will of armed actors So when are armed actors going to be sensitive or responsive to? Civilians for example or it could be a group like the ICRC and when are they unlikely to be responsive? And this is a really important thing to know it really gives us a sense of the conditions under which The civilian population for example might be able to have some influence And so I've thought about this in a in a number of ways There are a number of dimensions across which you could align different armed actors But one of the ways I've thought about it is that looking at sort of hybrid groups And so trying to identify types of armed actors that could have incentives to target civilians But with the right amount of pressure May be able to pull back from from the brink and restrain themselves And so you could think about varying conflict conditions and conditions of contestation You could think about different organizational structures That either are on the brink of allowing violence or not and different just different motivations of what the groups are seeking Maybe the legitimacy of the group whether they have foreign fighters or local fighters for example Or the mix of those of those individuals and then think about what are the conditions under which Civilians might be able to kind of tip these groups just back over from that that sort of decision to use violence or not And so one of the ways I've looked at this in terms of outcomes is just how do civilian organizational structures and capacity correlate with levels of violence And so sort of in a statistical sense you can see the conditions under which that's true And as you see the intensity of conflict or combat increase it becomes harder though not impossible for civilians to Exert some influence, but one of the more interesting ways to do this is to kind of just ask people So why are you why why if you're an armed actor? Why would you change your mind or not? And so and this is in fact what I did in Columbia I went and interviewed a variety of ex-combatants from the right wing paramilitary groups to the more left wing Insurgent groups and I talked with ex-combatants and Tried to understand well, you know want to get inside your heads and understand how you view different civilian populations And what makes you change your mind about? about the use of violence and their Responses were really telling and what they indicated was that ex-combatants Taken to account these variations in Civilian community capacity and collective action capacity and so what they would tell me are things like When it there's an organized community They they would view it much differently than just a single civilian trying to sort of take an action or protest Their their behavior and so a few of the quotes that I that I had I mean one of them kind of floored me I was I was interviewing a mid a mid-level commander ex-commander of a FARC unit and he said to me a single swallow does not make a summer and I kind of had to take a step back and I didn't even really know what this means But sort of a single bird in the sky does not mean it does not signal summer or a significant shift And he later informed me that this was out of Shakespeare for example, which I didn't know And so here have a it's actually I guess Aristotle and maybe Shakespeare But the idea that you know a single individual is not something that that unit would take seriously But if it's the whole community then they have to take it into account Similarly, I went to look at minutes where civilian communities kept notes about their dialogues with armed actors And so these were just like meeting minutes like you would take would you would take here except the communities Has someone jotting these down with their meetings with armed actors and one of the things that came up was when would When would a paramilitary unit respect? The civilian community and they say I mean word-for-word, you know If it's one or two people who are protesting We're still gonna be here, but if it's if it's the entire community will withdraw and respect the community's wishes And so really it gets at this collective Importance of this collective mechanism to pressure one other example is these Different different combatant ex-combatants would say, you know when it when a community is protesting against us It changes the way we think and so it's really getting at the cognitive underpinning of The norms and beliefs of these groups and the importance of that is that it's not just once once a group is changing the way It thinks and its norms It's not just that it's going to treat that community differently But it's going to carry that thought process and behavior and it'll apply it likely apply it elsewhere, right? so it's really this internalization of understanding the importance of civilian resistance and The respect for civilians and so once they've internalized that in theory they'll go and apply this to other Communities that they interact with as well. So it really changed what's what's going on with within the group And so I think the more we can understand from the ex from the combatants view why they're doing what they're doing the more effective You know will be as humanitarians this is just a sort of a Sampling if you want of some of their backgrounds and some of the things that they're working on Which we hope gives you a bit of clues as to maybe where some of the directions of of the roots of restraint in war report will go And so I think we can open it up now As we were often reminded it in these situations, please make sure you're asking a question As much as possible, which means you actually want to hear illicit information from the people in front It's it's not been an honor for me I know many of these people from from their writings and this is the first time I've had a chance to actually meet many of them So it's it's been an honor for me the last couple days talking with them and brainstorming and working out the final design for what We're doing so It's a very sort of valuable opportunity so we can get as many questions as we can That would be fantastic So if we can keep them short and and sort of punchy and I will cut you off if you go out too long just let you know Thank you very much Hugo slim and I see I'll see thank you all very much for not just telling us about your work We're telling about very clearly and concisely and excessively which is great Francisco, can I just ask you one question? You mentioned that there are Moments and when people break their own laws. So these might be laws. They actually hold by conviction But they would still break them. Can you give us an example or two of those kind of circumstances? Thanks, but perhaps we'll take take a couple questions. That way we can do this way you guys can answer them Obviously not all the questions apply to each of you and you can pick and choose. Yes, sir, Robert James Parsons Journalist historian student of international law. It's in the last capacity. I'm here. This is part of my continuing education The roots of behavior in war No one seems to mention the whole capitalist system that teaches violence that sells violence That is persuaded everybody with money to invest at the best way to invest it is in the means of making war and Yet we live in a society in a whole culture that is based on a cult of violence from video machines on up to Thermal barrack weapons and no one seems to have talked about that this whole in short the mentality That underpins what you're skirting around. Could you say something about that, please? Brian and also to Fiona and the other panelists for Presenting the research that will be conducted if I may I have a little method logical question I wanted to throw up. Sorry Brian. I couldn't I couldn't resist No, just listening to you all now. I got me thinking about these norms of restraints How will you operationalize that kind of a notion in the research put differently? How can you distinguish the non-event? So Francisco was saying sometimes there was a massacre and sometimes there isn't how can you then say, okay? That non-event the non massacre is actually related to some sort of a behavioral notion of restraint We didn't do it because we for some reason didn't want to And got me thinking sometimes the the research on prevention has this kind of a problem because it's like well if Prevention has worked then you haven't got much to observe anymore So it's very difficult to then kind of prove that it's because of something I did or some prevention program that it didn't happen So to put it in one another way is how much is it about agency rather than what I've also been hearing on the panel a lot of Material semiotic kind of structures that you're actually studying rather than the behavior itself You don't get asked questions. Sorry all of you From the center on conflict development and peace building at the Graduate Institute I think maybe Francis could you want to start as as you've been named directly and called out? This sort of start with with some of that so starting with with yours I Think that I would give examples at three levels On the one hand it may be the case that you have opportunistic fighters who violates the rules of the group So for example in the case of the FARC Rape is very strictly prohibited and sneezed upon etc. Etc. But it happens Let's say it is not massive, but it is not marginal either So it is not five or ten cases maybe in the hundreds during a very long war, but it takes place So so that would be one example the second example is when one unit Refuses to uphold the norms of the whole group There are there may be some example for example within the paramilitary one day Paramilitary were in their product in their process of demobilization from the top of the network. They said let's stop massacring Even they invented euphemisms We will attack multiple military objectives, but stop massacring, but some units Continued massacring, but sometimes the group as a whole fails to uphold its own standards like when for example the FARC and the LN both Claim to not attack social leaders These do not belong to their targets and even then they killed him especially in conditions of high military competition So so there are let's say three levels and three organizational dynamics underlying those levels then the second one Regarding the the the Proving indication exactly proving which is a also a very very very interesting question Yeah, probably this concept has to be developed etc. And it will be part of the research I think you remember Sherlock Holmes who says look the the key element of my investigation is that the Hound didn't bark The story is called the Hound of Baskerville. I was remembering while you were speaking so If one thinks about the different elements of or the different Yeah, the components of patterns of violence against civilians Which are the type of crimes the frequency of the crimes and the targets Then you can disaggregate this and start to see what you do not observe So sometimes the group simply does not commit rape for example Yeah, and that this is a very important datum, especially in a civil war in which other groups commit rape Or for example, you if you observe a systematic and permanent difference in the frequencies or If for example the killings affect very different targets so this notion of a of restraint can be systematically operationalized and of course it has to be pushed further because restraints is Has more merits if I couldn't can put it in in those terms In certain conditions and of course it becomes a special form of restraint for example when you do not reciprocate when a group attacks your social Constituency or your electoral constituency or whatnot and you decide not to reciprocate so so so I think there are elements to do to Transform that concept into a fully operational concept in your last comment. Yes indeed There are a lot of elements of of the culture of violence Etc. Etc. But what one sees from the very aggregate perspective is that different forms of violence and war have fallen down in time so That variable that you say Might in this particular context might not have full explanatory value Yeah, I only and then Oliver and I'm just thinking about Sorry to put you on the spot, but talking about how in the context of reciprocity where you don't see reciprocity in some cases Francisco was saying as an example of of restraint There were a couple examples that you had brought up this week about sort of practically how you can actually see that in some cases Yeah, so I mean I was talking about an example of where the white army in 2014 so The white army are the newer like cattle defense force and there was a strong belief that a large massacre had happened in Duba against the newer Yeah, so they their response was to mobilise very quickly, which is very interesting in itself because they are based They're scattered there in cattle camps to mobilise on mass and move in the thousands in the direction of of the government that they thought to carried out this massacre in Duba and But on route they were aiming for bore so they that was kind of en route to Duba the capital and and they were They were going to attack it and they did attack it and they eventually Controlled it and they attacked the areas around that and carried out massive violations of IHL, but in the Dinka villages before that Actually, they stayed relatively peacefully and and there weren't a tool Atrocities committed they they kind of stayed they passed through and even there was one incident where there was a bit of a kind of Scuffle and and a dinka kind of injured someone from the white army But they they chose to take that to the dinka chief and have it settled peacefully as opposed to even kind of Returning that with any kind of act of revenge despite then a few days later going on to commit a horrible acts and atrocities against dinka communities So so in a way that feels like it's a strange pattern There's differences that their own behaviour was different just a couple of days later And I guess it's really interesting to explore like why why was that the case? And then I can I keep I guess I mean I think South Sudanese know that the current like the world can be very brutal and the current kind of contemporary world can be very Violent the state they've experienced again and again over the last hundred years as they've experienced the state And they've experienced government as an incredibly violent Experience and that hasn't ended and I think a lot of people like the prophetess and position themselves as something slightly different So she intentionally Doesn't want for example modern technology around her. She won't accept cattle that have been bought with money She won't accept certain types of modern clothing and that has an incredibly popular resonance I think partly because people have seen the violence of the state in South Sudan There's a personal experience to them, and they know it's disrupted family life So I think people are yeah, there's definitely authorities that are kind of mediating and those experiences of violence Something to just for that that last question as well It's a really important question particularly in the sense that in the 20 20th century 21st century Now as a as a people I've developed weapons that you know have the capability for unsustainable violence across the globe And so this is not a flippant question question at all I think the important part about About what the ICRC is doing is it's actually making the world sustainable in a in a world where there's unsustainable weaponry and unsustainable levels of the building to kill each other so if you look at the history of The 20th century this giant edifice of IHL was created out of the customary laws of war that you know over the last You know centuries and millennia really But really when you get down to it that doesn't those laws on the face of it don't actually mean anything unless the Leaders and the combatants who are held to those laws can actually implement them can actually put them into practice without that these laws are just paper there's just two just words and There's been a lot of political science scholarship of the last decade that has said just that That if you look at the numbers of countries I've signed on the IHL signed on to the Geneva Conventions It actually is very low correlation with actually how combatants treat civilians in war. It's actually quite depressing if you read it So so so what we're going with is that what are we left with right? So what what are we doing the purpose of this research? You know of what what what we're doing of what the ICRC does is to look at what happens when you take those IHL norms those principles and you actually now pull them out of the ether and put them down into the military organizations and Then you train combats to those norms now. Are you having an effect now? Are you changing behavior on the battlefield if you're not well, then this whole project is is Should be seriously questioned all this everything that's happening in Geneva is is you know perhaps just words But but if you are having an effect if those those laws those principles are having an effect on how combatants on the Battlefield actually are thinking about and treating civilians as they enter into the most difficult context of their lives fighting for survival then then you're doing something then you're you're you're having an effect on on You know peace on the world or the treatment of civilians It's not just words So if you talk to you know you look at what the US Army did the US US Air Forces in World War two It was you know it was virtually a non-issue for you know worldwide city bombing leveling cities You know happened here here here on this continent It's you know to talk like that. It's almost unthinkable today if you speak with American military officers You know when when that is even what is raised by some of the you know US political leaders now the military personnel as it's laughable and all the generals come out and they say this is this is not how We think about civilians. It's not how we think about war that is due to a large extent Because of the principles of IHL that have been seeping into into the US military into its training You know over the last few decades. It's again. It's not always perfect Certainly a number of violations that the military is engaged in on the US side on many sides But this whole mindset this whole framework of thinking about the laws of war really is taken seriously to Degree that it was not a generation ago And so the only way that we can actually Continue along this path as a as a you know as a species as a people is actually you know in this in this face of This technology that that we live amongst is to to take these principles seriously and to you know To really try to embed them into the military organizations for states and non-states, you know In this world so so it's a very important important question. Yeah, I'll just I'll just be brief But I mean kind of extends on on what no extends on what what Andrew just said And you know we have to keep in mind that war is made by the few right in general war is made by the few There are a lot of there certainly are cultures of war I mean if you want to talk about I don't it could be If you could view this capitalism you could view it as whatever but there are certainly people out there who were who are causing Harm and but we have to remember that the vast majority of people are not Directly involved in in hostilities and in fact there are a lot of what you could call You know in many places a culture of peace and so we won't really want to think about what this culture of peace is And in fact a lot of my research has looked at how civilians act Peacefully non-violently to try to avoid violence and bring conflicts to a close and so we one of the things I've tried to do is really unpack And try to measure and figure out what a culture of peace means and looks like and at least at the community level You can you can see this there are different communities that specifically promote Norms of non-violence norms of peaceful conflict resolution norms of not participating in armed groups or with armed actors Not getting engaged in denunciations and this is a belief system It's and so I'm not saying it's everywhere But you know to the extent that we can promote this both within the civilian population and within armed groups and armed actors You know there that's sort of one of the one of the one of the challenges We're up against is to figure out how to do that so very quickly so we can get one more round to questions if I may sir You wanted to reinforce the point. Yeah It capitalism has very violent dynamics I think the base of your question is you have a lot of evidence in equivocal evidence and Since I am Colombian I know that life can become nightmarish very fast But when you look at the aggregate figures it happens that's international wars And civil wars have fallen according to every single indicator Including of course the worst indicators like casualties, etc. Etc. So So let's say the argument would have to match with that evidence Very brief question. You've been all discussing your fascinating research vis-a-vis the basis of which would be international Humanitarian law some variant that we know today treaty law customary, etc Have you discussed how to approach situations in which the armed groups do not at all accept IHL And I don't mean IHL as a body of law I mean they have a completely different reference framework meaning Islamist groups for example that that just adopt a religious framework lots Many parts of which do not correspond to the tenets of IHL What are your thoughts on how to approach and deal and engage With groups like that to the extent that is any experience and in the end that context I have to say I mean with all due respect to the Seemingly wonderful work the prophetess is doing it's the prophetess nature of it that personally really bothers me It's you know, how does one deal with stuff like that where the prophetess in this? Specific instance may be great, but there as you said yourself their instances in which you know, which isn't it's not the case It's a little bit in the same direction. Do you see an evolution where universality is going away I mean is in a sense that you have more and more groups who sink in we and the others and we have rules for Ourselves and our community, but the others are not part of these rules And and thank you all for coming in for presenting your research. I think it's extraordinarily rich I do have a question in terms of methodology. I guess in the future. Will you focus on? Certain violations that group groups refrain from committing so for instance will you focus on let's say sexual violence or torture or Even detaining someone who is perceived to be part of the enemy And will you set a typology of these types of norms because I think that would be also quite rich for us to better understand Thank you regarding the development of norms for actors who don't explicitly Bied by IHL explicitly But what is there still a sense of restraint? I actually have an article coming out in security studies I believe this year that looks at the Ugandan milk. It looks at Uganda Before as the current regime before it was actually the regime. It was developed at the NRA under me 70 and the development of the Norms of protection norms of restraint that they developed completely independent of international humanitarian law So this was a rebel group coming right out of the bush very little Recognition of international humanitarian law or what impact it had but they've developed very strong norms of Internal restraint towards civilians based on the internal dynamics of their own political ideology. So that's a short answer But I know the panel members can probably speak to that if you look especially at Islamist movements And then of course in Afghanistan. Well, you have the you have the Taliban. I mean if you if you would ask them Well international humanitarian law Well, yeah, they they squarely, of course rejects anything that is not, you know, that has nothing to do with with religion, but Whatever that they believe in I mean if you would engage them in that kind of discussion Which you do you and the researchers do of course And and of course the the similarities now what what I mean is it is it according to international? I mean, is it is it an IHL violation to killed civilians? Yes That's exactly the same as as if they would believe you know If they would tell you from the perspective of Sharia But what is what is of course actually different and that is where this whole discussion of you know the the norms of these groups really come into into into into play is is For example in in one sense, how do you define the enemy, right? So what you would from your perspective would be a a civilian from their perspective that might not be the case For example anybody who works for the government. He may be a civilian But from their perspective that person is considered to be contributing to the you know to the sustainability of the corrupt or unbeliever unbeliever System or or government now there of course you you you know You have you have those you have those differences, so you can't really But if you would hold them to the to the standards at least that they would believe in and and have a more sort of Constructive engagement of that what you don't have to do is you don't have to always bring to them What the IHL is about you could talk to them from from a window that they understand and that they can't always tell you No, because then that is something that they claim they're fighting for it will be an example just because it just for that I may so An example of that is exactly as that you know as I talked about so you know killing killing civilians So is that is that really? You know loud I mean I can give you a thousands of references from from a sure you perspective You know from from a religious perspective that that is just simply not Not not the case. It's it's just it's not it's not allowed to to to kill innocent civilians. I hope that just one more one more point to the There was a question again the the methodological Right yes, okay, so So again because we here we're looking at One of the one of the great things about this research is of course that we're you know that we are Comparing to groups So if you're comparing to groups and then and then there seems to be a variation in the behavior So one is more constrained than the other is not Whereas the overall goal The the the the initial goal why why these groups were actually initially set up is the same and then and then you see That difference so that negation sort of you know that that constraint Is is is not really a problem because you still have got your variations because then what is it? That that makes these two groups different at the end And that gives you gives you the answer and I mean I don't want to go in and to the then to the details of of of the models that we have and and what What the principle I mean unless of course there's this There probably isn't time but just to sort of summarize each research stream is actually looking at two groups where there is a difference And that allows for that very comparison to begin to start unpacking why those differences exist Okay, we are very close to the end of our time Is there any sort of last comments based on the last set of questions? Otherwise, we will take it upstairs, and I'm sure you'll be pounced on by everybody And asked for the question Sorry, yeah No one's really kind of directly dealt with it around We hope to come up at least with a partial typology, but also with a topology, and this is not only playing with words This means attaching some sort of behavior to Different organizational structures So maybe it is the case and that would be it's one hypothesis It may be the case that some kind of organizational structure vertical horizontal what not is commits different types of Crimes and also restraints in different ways according to the type of crime and So there will be a typology, but Possibly attached to different types of organizations Okay, and I can just say that we also discussed today Looking in particular arbitrary killing at sexual violence at attacks against healthcare structures and Force displacement, I think was the fourth, but then we had lots and lots of debates. We haven't actually finalized our Methodology or we were talking at one stage about harmonization, but now we're talking about cross fertilization. So But anyway, they they were the areas the priorities for ICRC that we thought we would particularly look into So thank you all very much for coming and I'd really like to we were warm. Thank you also to our panelists I have to say on a personal level. It's been a real pleasure, and I've learned so much this week We've had a really dynamic group. We seem to get on very well Which is of course never a given but very very important in such a research project So they're now going to go out into the field once we've finalized our cross-fertilized methodology and Then they will carry out the research until the end of the year and hopefully we'll all be back here Well, I hadn't told them this yet. So this is news to them at the end of the year to present some of the findings if it suits everybody to do so and And we hope that that's going to be the beginning of an exciting process of trying to look at these findings And then find out what does it mean the practical implications of this for the ICRC because the policy focus It's very important. We really want to be able to talk to the way that the ICRC is Interacting with these groups and what is the best way of trying to influence behavior in the field? And so I think it's a very exciting journey And I hope you'll be you know your interests will be sustained throughout and thank you very much And now we can go upstairs and have a glass of wine and discuss further


Over the past century, we've been to the moon, we've split the atom, we've sequenced the human genome, but we're still only at the very beginning of our understanding of the human brain. This is one of the great challenges that we face. If we can understand the brain, we can develop better treatments for brain disorders, we can design better robots, better computers, and ultimately we can better understand ourselves. Now Alan Turing was one of the first to suggest that the brain computes. In other words, that it implements algorithms to solve problems like computers. And Turing also was one of the first to design and help build a computer, the automatic computing engine from 1950, and it was a process that he actually called building a brain. Since that time, there's been tremendous advances in computing hardware and algorithms, and there's been a lot of recent excitement about deep learning networks which are inspired by the hierarchical processing in the visual system of the brain and which can be trained to recognize patterns like human faces or cats in YouTube videos. This combination of fast hardware and improved algorithms has now allowed computers to outperform brains on a range of different tasks, for example playing chess or playing video games, and computers can now challenge the performance of humans for sophisticated tasks like object recognition, one of the holy grails of computer vision. However, brains are still better than computers at many tasks, particularly those that are involved in interacting with the real world. You know, we have Lionel Messi scoring a beautiful goal, and for comparison, here we have the current state of the art of robot soccer. This is taken from the 2015 Robot Soccer World Cup. The key question now is what is the origin of the superior performance of the human brain? First of all, neurons are remarkable computing devices. Each neuron gets up to 10,000 synaptic inputs, each of which is plastic and allows neurons and brains to store huge amounts of information, much more efficiently than computers can. Brains run at only about 12 watts of power, orders of magnitude more efficient than the computer. But neurons cannot just store information, but they also can process information. So in my lab we're using lasers to activate individual synaptic inputs in patterns to single dendrites. And with these experiments, we can show that single neurons can already solve computational tasks like pattern recognition. If neurons are so smart, why is it so hard to understand how the brain works? Well, there's two main problems. The first is that neurons are embedded in neural circuits, which are very complicated. This is an image of a neural circuit taken from the so-called brain bow mouse developed by Jeff Lichtman and Josh Sains at Harvard. And you can see from this image that reconstructing the wiring diagram of such a circuit, even when all the neurons are labeled with different colors, is a great challenge. The second problem is that we don't know the neural code. So this is a simultaneous recording from hundreds of neurons in the cortex by my colleague Nick Steinmetz at UTL. And each neuron fires a spike or an action potential, so each dot here is a single action potential and a single neuron in the circuit. And just like it's hard to read a message in the mouse code, if you don't know the code, it's very hard to figure out how neurons are processing information. But we're now at a pivotal point in neuroscience where we have new tools to crack this problem coming from two unexpected sources in nature, the jellyfish and green algae. And these two creatures have given us two new proteins that now allow us to read and write activity in neural circuits in the intact brain. So the jellyfish has given us green fluorescent protein, which we can link up with a calcium sensor to make a genetically encoded calcium sensor. And here we've implemented this, we've expressed the sensor in cortical neurons in my lab. And you can see from this movie that you can use the flashes of light to record the activity of thousands of neurons in the intact brain. Green algae have given us a protein called channeler dopsin, which is a light-sensitive channel which when expressed in neurons allows you to control the activity of neurons with light. And here, my colleague Kyle Deiseroth at Stanford has expressed channeler dopsin in neurons in the monocortex. And you can see that when you switch on the blue light, you can control the behavior of this mouse with light alone. This is called optogenetics. Now wouldn't it be great if we could combine these two revolutions by being able to read out and also manipulate the activity of neurons in the intact neural circuit and use individual beams of light to manipulate the neural code on the spatial and temporal scale in which it normally happens in the brain. So here's how we're approaching this dream experiment in my lab. We're co-expressing a calcium sensor and an optogenetic probe derived from channeler dopsin in cortical neurons and then using individual beams of laser light to manipulate individual neurons independent of their neighbors. We can then use this approach to measure the neural code during behavior and also manipulate the neural code during behavior to make cause links between patterns of activity and behavior. So we're at a new frontier in neuroscience where we can both read and write activity in neural circuits and use this approach to crack the neural code and develop new treatments for disease. For example, restoring vision in the retina. And we can also harness this new information to develop better computer chips and better robots. So it's a time of tremendous opportunity. Thank you.


Act 5 of a Women is a Weathercock by Nathan Field. This is the LibriWalks Recording. Our LibriWalks Recording are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriWalks.org. Act 5, Scene 1 and a Bella Front. Titles and State, do you call it? Oh, content! Thou art both beauty, means and all in marriage. Joy dwells not in the princess' palaces. They that envy them, do not know their cares. Where I, the queen of gold, I could not buy an hour's ease for my oppressed heart. Oh, where this wedlock not to tie again, not all the state and glory it contains, joined with my father's fury, should enforce my rash consent. But, Scootmore, thou shalt see this false heart in my death most true to thee. Show the knife hanging by her side. My lord, my father, all the company did note my sudden sadness now at supper. Yet came I out and put on feigned mirth, and mean to sit out this night's revels, too, to avoid all suspect may grow in them, lest my behavior should my intent reveal. Our grieves, like love, we hardly can conceal. Here come my sisters. Are the maskers ready? Enter Lucida with her velo garland on and Catherine. They are gone to dress themselves. Master Neville's come. I would, I had not vowed to live amade.  Introth, thy state is happier much than ours, whenever too like us unfortunate. Thy case indeed I need must pretty much, because I think thy virtue slandered. But for my lady sister, if she reap, sad discontent, tis nuns but her own fault, I knew the passages twixed her and scooed more. Sister, I wonder you will name a man I think not on. He was no match for me. Why do you blame me, that should rather blame your wandering eye, to love a man loved me? Well, tis too late now to expostulate.  Lost, lost, Introth. Tomorrow I shall hear, I make account.  And for my captain pouts, by this time he is ten mile on the river toward Gravesend. Enter Sir John Whirly with sevens, with torches and cudgels. Stand you two there. Serah, go you with me. Why, how now, girls? Here still? What, and your ladyship? How I, away I say, go take your places. Some torches for my lady. You, Serah. Exe in Bellaronde, Lucida, Kate. Is my lady Ninny awake yet? Yes, sir. She is awake, but she scants sober. The first thing she called for was her Aquavitae bottle. Who is with her? The good Sir Innocent and her gentlewoman. Go tell them I desire their company. The mass stays on them, you say, and you hear the sides of one of their chairs must be let out, for her great ladyship. Marry shall it, sir. Exit Servant. Enter Neville, Count, Pennant, and Sir Abraham in their Mask-Queen robes. Sir Abraham, annoying, on a capon's leg. Soul! Man, leave eating now. Locke! Locke, you've all dropped on your soat. Oh, sir. I was in love today, and could not eat. But here, as one knows, the case is altered. Didn't mean but a handkerchief to wipe my mouth, but I had done. Soul, how this rascal stays with the rest of our things. Oh, no, sir, Count. What, ready, Master Neville? All ready. Ready. Only we tarry for our vizards and our caps. I put them to a knave to do, because I would have them the better done. If you put them to a knave, you'll like to have them the worse, Dutton. Your wit is most active. I called him knave in regard of his long stay, sir, not his work. But, you hear, Master Neville, do you speak of vizard with the most terrible countenance for me? A very devil's face. I fear nothing but that it will fright the women. Oh, would it would, and a huge mustachio. A very turks. Excellent. But do you think he will come at all? Oh, there he is. Scoodmore, visit. By your leave. Stand back. By your leave. And a Scoodmore like a vizard maker. Nothing can be done tonight, if I unto not. Stand back there, or I'll burn you. Twirl but a horous trick, sir. Oh, sir, it's you. Heart, you will be killed. Marry God forbid, sir. Pray, forebear. Let me speak to him. Oh, you use us very well. In good faith. I have been so troubled about this gentleman's scurvy face. I dig it. It is wonderful. Well, are you fitted now? Fitted at all points. Where are the caps? Here, sir. Let me see mine. Come, help me on with mine. This is a rare face to fright the maize of the country. Yeah, now open my purse. Come, help me on. So, so, away. Mine being on, I'll follow you. Pray, make haste. Exe and Sir John Worley, say Abraham, count, pendant. So, that door's fast, and they are busy about their charge. On with this robe of mine, this vizard, and this cap. Help me a little. Change habits. At first change, I must tell her who I am. Right. Tis agreed I, leading of the mask, should dance with Bella Front. And at the second, I'll come away with her, and leave them dancing, and she'll find you at the back door. The rest that follows is digested in my breast. What would you do, I stand back? Unless you could eat torches. And to count, pendant, Sir Abraham and their masking robes. Come, come, away, for shame. Tis such a tedious rascal. So how are ye? Exe and Maskers. Thou hast well fitted, though thou madest them stay. I forbid any man to mend them, sir. Good night unto your worship. Will not stay? Alas, sir, I have another to set forth this very night. By your leave, my masters. Exit Neville through them.  Now go with me, and let all in, that will. Exit Sir John Whirly with them, and run in three or four. Scene two. Enter two or three, setting three or four chairs, and four of ice-tools. Loud music, in which time enters Sir John Whirly. Sir Innocent, Bella Front, Lucider, Kate, my Lady Ninny, Mistress Wagtail. They seat themselves. Lady Ninny offers her two or three chairs. At last finds the great one. They point at her and laugh. As soon as she's set, she drinks of her bottle. The music plays, and they enter. After one strain of the music, Scudmore takes Bella Front, who seems unwilling to dance. Count takes Lucider, Pendant, Kate. Sir Abraham, Mistress Wagtail. Scudmore, as they stand, the other coating, too, whispers as follows. I am yours, Scudmore. Soft music. By heaven I am. Be ruled by me in all things. Even to death. Soot, did you not know me by my purse? I should now have known you by that, for you wear it on your head, and other folks in their pockets. Which is my Lord, I pray. The second match. Young Neville leads. And where's Sir Abraham? He with the terrible visage. Now, I looked upon him to disfigure himself, though. And true not for my bottle, I should swoon. Music. And they dance the second strain, in which Scudmore goes away with Bella Front. Good. Very good. The other four dance another strain. Honor and end. But where's the bride and Neville? Where tricks? Oh, there they come. It was their part to do so. And as Scudmore unvisited, Bella Front with pistols and the right parson. This Neville, this is Scudmore. How? But here's my lady. No, my gentlewoman. Zooms, treason, I smell powder. In short, know that I am married to this gentleman, to whom I was contracted long ago. This priest, the inviolable, not hath tied. Aside. What ease I find being unladified. What riddles this? Where the last statute of two husbands. Pitch. This is the very priest that married me. Is it not, sister? And to Neville, like the parson, too. No. Lord bless us. Here is Conjuring.  Okay. The world's turned upside down. I have heard and seen two or three benefices to one priest, or more. But two priests to one benefices ne'er before. Married not you, the Euro? Bonafide no. You did then? Yes. I have the privilege then. Right. You were married first. But you don't. This is a devil in a parson's coat. Neville puts off the priest's weeds and has a devil's sure wonder. A pretty emblem? Who married her, or would have caused her marry to any man but this? No better was. Let circumstances be examined. Yet here's one more, and now I hope you all perceive my marrying not canonical. Slips off his devil's weeds. Neville! Hart, what a deal of navery a priest's cloak can hide if it be not one of the honestest, friendliest cousin-nages that ere I saw I am no Lord. Life! I'm not married then, an honest. So, mistress Kate, I kept you for myself. It boots not to be angry. No faith, sir John. And a strange bit poulks on his back.  Now, oh, more navery yet? Prithee for bear, or I shall do thee mischief. My olive here is some sad your merriment. Know you this captain? Yes, very well. Oh, sister, here's the villain slandered me. You see he cannot stand to it. Is he hurt in the arm too? Yes. My then, by God's lid thou art a base-rogue. I knew I should live to tell thee so. Sir Abraham, I see. Heaven is just.  Is this the surgeon you would carry me to? Confess your slander and I will, I swear. No, it is no matter. I'll cry quittance with you. Forgive me, mistress Kate, and know all people I lied not with her, but belied her once, and to my recantation that same soldier enforced my hand. Yes, here it is, mistress Kate. They all look on the paper. I see now how I am cheated. Love him well. He has redeemed your honour with his sword. But where is Strange, my son? Or were he here he should be married new to make all sure? Oh, my divine spirit, he's gone to sea. This cunning in her is exceeding good. Your son, your husband, Strange is murdered. How? Peace, peace for heaven's sake, peace. Come, sir, I'll carry you to a surgeon. Here's the goal to stop thy throat. For God's sake, peace. Sirah, you've brought me to a surgeon already. I'll be even with you. Of all men living, I could marry thee. Why not my heart give in to another man? Sir, did you speak of Strange? These women are as crafty as the devil. Yes, I did speak of him, sir John, my lord. How Strange is murdered by that villain's hand and by his wife's consent. How? Oh, God forbid. Search presently the closet and the vault. There you shall find his body. It is too true. The reason all may guess, her husband wanting spirit to do on me what he hath done in hope to marry her, he hath murdered him. To marry me? No, villain. I do hate him on this report worse than I do thyself. And may the plagues and torches of a land seize me if this not be an innocent hand. For God's his most like tooth, son Scoodmore, pray. Look to this fellow gentleman. Assist. Torches. Some torches. I'll go search myself. I will assist you. But I pray, sir, how came you unto this knowledge? From his mouth. I'll save your labour and discover all. Thou, tortured villain, didst not swear thou wouldst not discover me. I but swore ingest. Nay, but remember thou didst wish strange living if ever thou didst tell. Sir, all is true, and with my punishment would ease my conscience. Do new gate with him, hence. Take her along, out-murderers, or thou art no child of mine. Fetch Constable and officers. Away. Sir, do but hear me speak. Fetch the officers.  Sir, you are then too violent. I will bail her. Discovers himself. O my dear, strange. My son. Brother. Young strange. Cut.  Help me now to a surgeon, or I shall swoon instantly. As to lead him, he speaks. I were born a woman, citizen. Fair thee well, and farewell. Love and women, ye diseases. My horse and sword shall be my mistresses. My horse are caught. My sword shall lie with me. Exit. The way to cure lust is too bleed, I see. Tell him all, Skudmore, whilst I go awo-ing again. So, John, will you go along, and my two worshipful elders, I pray, be your witnesses. Priest, go not you away. Heart, I have so ruminated on a wife, that I must have one this night, or I shall run proud. Neville, Skudmore, Bella Front, Strange, Catherine, whispered in one part. Pendant, Sir Abraham, and Vactail in another. Mistress Lucida, you did once love me. If you do still, no more words, but give me your hand. Why, are you doubtful? Now look upon me, Mistress Lucida. Time was, time is, and times past. How long have you now? I am otherwise provided. Well spoken, brazen head. Now all never, Sir Abraham. Then first, as duty binds, I crave consent of my two appearance, dear. If I say so, if not, I'll have, whether you will or no. How? How? I hope you will not. Ma'am, I am resolved. You have a humour of your aquavite bottle. Why should not I have a humour in a wife? An old man were a fitter match for her. He would make much of her. I know not what she call much-making on her. I am sure I have made two on her. And that, an old man cannot do, I hope. Oh, thou, beyond Lawrence of Lancashire! Come, come, you shall not. Speak not in vain. I am too sure to change. The hand and heart are sure. H.A. Signum. And this have I done. I never lay with her. Then, it is too late. It is sure. It is vain to cross the will of fate. Well, well, God bless you. Oh, bless you. Abraham and Vactale, kneel. Thanks, Reverend couple.  Parson, you shall dispatch us presently. Lord, how soberly you stand.  Strange and most fortunate. We must have a new tuck, then. Is it a match? Tis done. Then back us, squeeze grapes with a plentious hand. Parson, you'll take some pains with us tonight. Come, brothers, come, fly willow to the woods, and like the sea, for else let's drink whole floods. I consecrate my deed unto the city, and hope to live myself to see the day that shall be shown to people in a play. And may all true love have like happy end. Woman, forgive me, men, admire my friend. On, Parson, on. And boy, out-voice the music near was so much, but cannot heavily powers. Done and undone, and done in twelve short hours. Excellent. End of Act V. End of A Woman is a Vethercock by Nathaniel Field.