Your Excellencies, dear colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to warmly invite you, I was going to say to the good ship, the humanitarian, but maybe for the afternoon we could pretend, but certainly to the humanitarian for a very important event for the ICRC, the launch of the updated commentary to the second Geneva Convention. Now this afternoon we have a really rich program of world experts to talk about particular matters relating to the second Geneva Convention. And so we're really looking forward to your attendance here. We will first hear from the President of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Dr. Peter Mowder. And after that we will hear from a good colleague and certainly someone very heavily involved in this process, a world expert on naval law, Professor von Heinegg. And after that we will have a panel, once again with experts from across the globe looking at the real impact that this piece of work will have upon protections needed more than ever today at sea. So without any further ado, I'd like to warmly welcome President Peter Mowder to give a presentation relating to the substance of why we're here today. Peter Mowder, you have the floor. Thank you. I'm frying my microphone. Everything starts with technology. And technology is always the obstacle of everything. Helen, ladies and gentlemen, excellencies dear colleagues, from early history on people have used sea, lakes, rivers for trade and commerce, for adventure and discovery. Despite these close ties, our survival on water depends on man-made objects and you know it for having just done a cruise on Lake Geneva on ships, navigation systems, oxygen tanks. If we get injured or sick on water or if our ships sink, we are vulnerable and our lives are in immediate danger. Nothing demonstrates this more clearly and more tragically in recent times than the large number of migrants and refugees who died while trying to cross the Mediterranean. Many of these men, women, children have successfully escaped the deadly conflict on land only to perish at sea. Many states have military presence at sea in times of peace, sometimes far away from coastlines. Existing and emerging powers are investing heavily in their navies deploying warships, including submarines. Often this is to pursue objectives other than fighting a very actual war. Navy ships are deployed to protect lines of communication, essentially, or trade and economic prosperity, to act as deterrence to conduct surveillance and interdiction operations and to project the state's power overseas. The sea is vital, of vital economic importance and shipping and fishing are multi-billion industries today. The discovery of offshore resources such as fossil energy and seabed mining have further enhanced the economic potential of the oceans. As with anything of economic value, there is risk of competing territorial claims and overwrite of these resources which might even escalate into armed conflict as we know. The ICRC has also relied itself on boats to carry out humanitarian activities as the folder for this meeting today illustrates. In the last decade alone, the ICRC has chartered vessels to evacuate the wounded in Sri Lanka, to facilitate a return home of detainees in Libya and to bring the relief supplies to areas inaccessible by land in Somalia, Lebanon, South Sudan and Yemen. To adapt those complex realities of modern warfare and the growing challenges of assisting victims in armed conflicts, the ICRC is currently exploring how feasible it would be to have an ICRC hospital ship. Such vessels would significantly increase the ICRC's emergency response capacity, its flexibility to address emergency response to a changing pattern of warfare and battlefields to which we are exposed today. The term maritime security has become a buzzword in recent years. Its meaning is broad covering operations against piracy, terrorist threat to shipping, trafficking of narcotics, the illicit movement of people and goods, arms proliferation and illegal fishing. With the increased attention on maritime security operations, terrorism threats and migration, it's important to recall the humanitarian law is specifically and exclusively designed to operate in the context of armed conflict. Maritime security operations take many forms, some of which might involve the use of force at sea. The military and their naval force are a major actor in these operations. While these activities generally remain below the threshold of armed conflict and therefore outside the scope of international humanitarian law, they raise questions relating to the lawfulness of using force at sea. These operations increase the potential of incidents that could trigger an armed conflict at sea. If it happens, the rules protecting the victims of the conflict must be known and their contemporary meaning understood by all parties to the conflict. And this leads me to why we are here today. In March last year, as you know and Helen alluded to it, the ICRC reached a major milestone in launching the updated commentary of the first Geneva Convention of 1949, dealing with protection of the wounded and sick members of armed forces at land. This was the first updated big test commentary published in 1952. Today we reach a second milestone and I'm really very proud to present to you today the updated commentary on the second Geneva Convention. Applying the same methodology used by the updated commentary to the first convention, the ICRC again opened the drafting process to external contributions. You know better than I do who contributed together with our staff lawyers, researchers and the draft at the texts of the commentary. Drafts were peer reviewed by 40 senior scholars and practitioners from around the world, many of them serve in or used to serve in their country's naval forces. And I just mentioned to our colleague from Nigeria how envious I am when I see his beautiful uniform that I'm only the president of ICRC wearing blazers. While the naval forces always impress me on their stylishness and of contribution. So happy to have naval officers in uniform and out of uniforms in civilian clothing here this afternoon. So we benefited from international input organizations with relevant subject matter expertise and the commentary is therefore the result of a thorough and collaborative process. This updated commentary aims to reflect current practices of the world we live into today and provide up-to-date legal interpretations. Both the factual and legal landscapes have changed since the publication of the initial commentaries in the 1960s with potential implications for the interpretation of these conventions. For one international law regulating activities at sea has developed significantly since 1949. In particular, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and several conventions under the auspices of the international maritime organizations. Naval warfare capabilities have also developed to the point of allowing to strike targets far away. Many states nowadays possess submarines in their naval arsenal. Advances in technology have also influenced how states carry out their obligations under the second convention. For example, new technologies such as satellites and unmanned aerial platforms can be used to assess the number and locations of wounded, sick and shipwrecked at sea. Technology enabling underwater searches to retrieve the debt have also advanced considerably in recent years. The updated commentaries take into account these legal and factual developments to the extent that they affect the interpretation of the second convention. The second Geneva Convention, just like the first convention, recognizes that even when IHL rules regulating the conduct of facilities are properly applied, armed conflict results in death and destruction. At this core, the second convention requires that members of the armed forces who are wounded, sick or shipwrecked must be respected and protected. This convention regulates in great details the types of vessels that may be used to rescue and to provide medical and other care, including military hospital ships and coastal rescue craft. I trust that the panel of experts we have convened today will provide detailed insights on these important subjects. Critically, the convention requires the parties to conflict after each engagement to take all possible measures, to search for, collect and provide care for the victims of an engagement at sea. The second convention also deals with the protection of deceased persons and regulates the delicate subject of burial at sea. These obligations are important to ensure respect for the dignity of the deceased person. Although contained in two separate conventions, the first and the second Geneva Conventions embody the same logic and humanitarian principles. Members of armed forces who suffer during armed conflict must be aided, protected and cared for regardless on whether their suffering takes place and land or at sea. Just as the first Geneva Convention is as relevant today as it was in 1949 for any armed conflict that takes place and land, so the second convention is relevant for any armed conflict that takes place wholly or partly at sea or other waters. There have been a number of armed conflict with hostilities at sea since 1949. In these conflicts, the second convention was crucial for ensuring the care and protection of the wounded at sea and shipwrecked and dead members of the armed forces. The reach of the second convention is greater than one might initially think. For one, oceans constitute 71% of the Earth's surface. The use of submarines and unmanned naval system further increases the physical space in which an armed conflict could occur at sea. In addition, the second convention applies not only to the seas, but also to other bodies of water, such as internal waters and lakes. It is also important to note that while the history of naval warfare mostly deals with armed conflicts waged by states against states, non-international armed conflicts can also have a naval component today.  Critically, under Common Article III, civilians are amongst those protected. At the launch of the updated commentary on the First Geneva Convention, I spoke about the increased complexity of today's armed conflicts, more actors, more weapons, more refined strategies, and more networks. These complexities are not unique to warfare on land. Warfare is changing and new weapons are being developed, including warfare capabilities at sea. I also referred to the challenge of ensuring respect for international humanitarian law. Since recent conflicts have mainly impacted people and objects on land, it is on land that respect for IHL has been most rigorously tested. But the effect of warfare can often also be felt at sea, including on shipping. The challenge of ensuring respect for IHL is not specific to the First Convention. The rules contained in the Second Convention can only be effective if they are respected and properly implemented by the belligerents. As with warfare on land, the key to increased protection is respect for the better implementation of existing rules as everybody knows in that rule. Here, the ICRC has an important role to fulfill as a guardian and promoter of humanitarian rules and as an impartial, neutral, and independent organization whose exclusive humanitarian mission is to protect the lives and dignity of victims of armed conflict and other situations of violence. It follows from the ICRC's mission and mandate that it does not take a position on the underlying reasons for armed conflict, including any territorial claims states may have at sea. And if I highlight this neutral and partial role of the ICRC, let me also be very frank that the book of the commentary is not a dual use weapon. It's used exclusively to ensure proper implementation of international humanitarian law, but it's indeed a heavy tool, which can be used for different persons' purposes if coming into wrong hands. The ICRC has a long history of interpretation of IHL as everybody knows, applicable to warfare at sea. During the drafting of the 1864 Geneva Convention, the ICRC proposed a similar convention for maritime warfare already in the 19th century. This is an area of IHL that is underrepresented in scholarly circles and where we remind everyone of the protection considerations to comply with during any armed conflict at sea. The updated commentary of the second Geneva Convention forms a neutral part of ICRC's broader and historical engagement in protection of victims of armed conflict at sea. I'm convinced these commentaries will facilitate common understanding of the meaning and the critical importance of the provisions of the second Convention, which in turn will contribute to the protection of all those who suffer during armed conflict at sea. Let me just say how much I'm again proud for the ICRC teams, cognizant and full of recognition for all those who outside the ICRC have participated to help us draft this new version of the Convention. And I'm really looking forward at least for a couple of minutes to stay with you to hear the initial conversations that you have this afternoon. Apologies on my side that I don't stay with you the whole afternoon because I have a couple of other obligations waiting, but once again be assured that the work you have done is really something which I consider of critical importance and again, appreciations to everybody who has contributed. Thanks a lot. Thank you very much, Professor, sorry, Dr. Maurer, our president, we're in an environment, we can use the doctor. But thank you very much. I think that was a very useful walking through for all of us here on some of the issues and the way that ICRC has such a long history in this area. Now, as was mentioned by our president, whilst it was over 65 years ago when the Geneva Conventions were adopted, we feel that through our updated cometary process, we time and time again come across the examples, real life examples in the field where these principles found deeply embedded in the Geneva Conventions are as relevant and as important today as ever before. And so I think the role of the ICRC in making sure that we continue to interpret these very precious principles is really critical. And I think, as was mentioned once again by Peter, the fact that we've updated from many years ago these commentaries has been not only a labor of great intellect, but also a labor of great love. So I too want to add that the over and above of not just colleagues within the ICRC but outside the ICRC has been critical. Now, ladies and gentlemen, the commentaries are and will be published online. You'll be able to access them for free. And they're also in print. And I think I have a copy, if someone could pass me. We've got a print copy of the first commentary. If we can hold it up, my hand, voila. Very beautiful, very important. So it can be obtained online, but we also now have a copy that can be held. You can highlight it, you can mark it, and it'll be very important. Now, throughout the process of updating the commentaries, we've really asked ourselves one big question. How does the rule or the principle that we are engaged in looking at apply in 2017? And many bodies of knowledge that weren't around 65 years ago have been discovered, are part of our daily life, and need to be taken into account in these contemporary interpretations. Now, today, whilst, as we all know, many of the Geneva Conventions have, or they all have a number of common articles, today we'll focus more specifically on the provisions that are unique to the second Geneva Convention. Now, before I introduce our next speaker, the professor, I would like to flag that ICRC, as mentioned, has a considerable history in interpreting IHL as it applies to naval warfare. And even today, for example, we undertake a range of activities in disseminating the very important elements of this convention. Since 2014, the ICRC has hosted high-ranking operational naval officers, representing over 20 countries in the Asia-Pacific region, for a week-long workshop entitled Law of Armed Conflict at Sea. And we've had tremendous interest in this and a very high level, often, of those who participate. And this interest and commitment demonstrate and show to us the critical role that this convention plays in humanitarian issues as they relate to the sea. And the most recent workshop was hosted in Indonesia in 2016, and it focused on international law of the sea, naval operations and IHL, means and methods of warfare at sea, protection of the wounded, sick and shipwrecked and targeting issues. And in 2017, the ICRC will expand these opportunities to discuss IHL at sea for the first time by developing a maritime security workshop. So be ready for a further discourse on this topic. Another example, I think, beyond the commentaries, where we've been part of a really important discussion on these matters, is in 1995, the International Review of the Red Cross published a whole edition dedicated to the topic of war at sea. And considering the interest and importance on this topic, this year, 2017, another edition will come out, which is entitled War and Security of Sea at Sea. And it deals with issues relating to the law of neutrality, very interesting area, and also enforcement and humanitarian operations at sea. So that's something that's coming further. So ladies and gentlemen, without any further ado, I would like to introduce to you, as I mentioned previously, Wolf, who would like to come up to the podium here, thank you. The biographical details of our speakers are found on your seats in the pamphlet. So we won't waste time going through their eminence, but certainly we were delighted that the professor agreed to come and talk with us today. And what we've asked him to do is to talk for 15 minutes about what are the key issues and the key findings and ideas that have come out of this process that he thinks is worth highlighting. So thank you, Wolf, and you have the floor. Thank you very much indeed. Mr. President, excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, it's certainly a pleasure and an honor to be here, even though I was one of the victims of the process, but that is another story. So my task here is to give you a rough overview over the main findings, not only of the rules within the convention, but also with regard to the commentaries, the new commentary on the second convention. Of course, you will not be surprised that the main category of protected persons are those members of the armed forces of the parties to the conflict, which is, of course, one of the main aims of the convention. But you will, of course, see similarities and differences. So as has been rightly mentioned by the president, the sea is a special environment. And only for that reason, of course, they had to add to the victims of armed conflict, shipwrecked persons, which is not necessarily a category you would think about when it comes to land warfare. The other thing is that if you look at the rules, in particular Article 13 of the convention, you will find, of course, similar categories like those accompanying the armed forces, not surprising. But what you will also find is the crews of enemy merchant vessels. And here it's interesting to see that already in 1949, there was a big deficit in the convention because it fails to mention the crews of neutral merchant vessels that may be targetable as lawful targets or that may be sunk as price. And surprisingly, although this all belongs to the traditional law of naval warfare, the convention is altogether silent on this issue, which is surprising. The other category are, of course, objects that are especially protected, in particular, those rendering assistance to victims of armed conflicts at sea, in particular, of course, hospital ships, and coastal rescue craft. Interestingly enough, in 1949, this was correct to devote many provisions to hospital ships and only one tiny provision to coastal rescue craft. Today, we have probably three to, well, we have certainly three hospital ships in the world, four rather, certainly. But whether we have more than four in the world, we do not know because many states have given up to operate hospital ships because too expensive, too complicated, and so on and so forth. So the practical relevance of the rules on hospital ships does not seem to be that high. And the bigger relevance seems to be with coastal rescue craft. But only one provision is devoted to coastal rescue craft that are not protected in the same manner as hospital ships, because their protection is subject to operational requirements. And you can imagine what that means. It does not even say military necessity. Operational requirements could be anything. So this is something which we have to keep in mind, and now we return to that, in particular, when I will spend some sentences on the IMO convention that have already been mentioned by the president in his lecture. The other thing what you have to understand is, of course, there are principal obligations you are hopefully well acquainted with, respecting and rendering assistance to the victims of armed conflict at sea, which is, of course, one of the core obligations under the Second Geneva Convention. We have already heard from the president that even the dead or the deceased are being included into the protective scope, which is at sea a rather challenging issue, as you can imagine, because it's not as if you were just walking around and trying to collect the dead at sea. This is much more complicated and much more challenging. The other thing is that if you look at the specific obligation of the parties to the conflict to rescue the victims of armed conflict at sea, you will find a huge difference between the First Convention and the Second Convention. According to the First Convention, the obligation to search and rescue them applies at all times, and in particular, after each engagement. At sea, it's only after an engagement. And this is subject to whether rendering assistance and searching for them is possible. And you can imagine that the issue of possibility is not only probably subject to some kind of abuse, but it also shows you that already in 1949, the realities at sea were taken into consideration, and I think rightly so. Because just imagine not big submarines that are operated by some of the superpowers we have today, but some tiny submarines that are being operated today by many states in all parts of the world. So how would such a submarine, or the commander rather of the submarine, render assistance to the victims at sea if the submarine is forced to surface, by which it would become vulnerable, and so on and so forth? So the commander would probably say, this is not possible for me. But what's important, and that's one of the main findings of the commentary as well, this does not relieve the parties of the conflict or to the conflict to do whatever is necessary to search for and collect and to render assistance to those who are in peril at sea. So there are all kinds of things you can imagine. We have heard about unmanned systems you may include into your efforts. There are many other technological developments that may help states in complying with their obligations, but again, there are many open questions because the convention is rather old, 1949. And it was drafted on the background or against the background of the realities in particular of the two world wars. And the technology that was then in the minds of the delegations, and I may even add, of the members of the ICRC, is certainly today outdated and no longer reflective of the realities that exist out there. I will return to that. So my third point is how do we then apply this old treaty to the realities of modern warfare at sea? We already heard about beyond visual range, so many of the rules we see in the convention are based on, well, visual contact. Well, maybe binoculars, but today missiles are being targeted from 2000 kilometers and more to the respective target. They are satellites, they are unmanned systems involved and so on and so forth. So many of those provisions seem not to be operable any longer, but this is not the case. Because it's a well-established principle of treaty interpretation that you are not bound to what the drafters had in mind back then in 1949. Because a treaty is to a certain extent a living document and this also holds true certainly to the Second Geneva Convention. However, it is pretty difficult to put it mildly. For instance, there is a prohibition in the convention for hospital ships to use a secret code. So what does that mean, a secret code? Well, probably they had a clear idea back then in 1949 what that would mean. So they would have had to communicate in clear when everybody could be listening. But today hospital ships are communicating via satellites. And if they are communicating via satellites, the signals are encrypted. So this is then the use of a secret code or is it something which is admissible under the convention? There's also another problem involved in that issue that the equally authentic French and English texts vary considerably. So the English texts absolutely prohibit the use of a secret code, whereas the French texts only prohibit the use of a secret code by the wireless or by the use of the wireless for the transmission of information, so what does that mean? And we were stunned, how did that difference come into the treaty into equally authentic texts? And I must tell you, we didn't find any indication in the drafting history why the French texts differs so considerably from the English texts. And unfortunately nobody was able to explain this to us. However, we will see that it made a lot of sense in those days and this required some research on our side. So I talked to retired naval officers and they told me, oh yeah, the French version makes a lot of sense. And I asked why? Well, because we had two devices, one for transmitting and one for receiving messages and they were in different separate departments. So ah, then you can say the French version makes a lot of sense and if you look at the object and purpose of the protection of hospital ships, this is also very reasonable because you have to send a hospital ship to the area where it is to provide assistance to the wounded and sick probably well before the respective engagement takes place. So that's why we believe that the authentic French text is more, is closer to what the agreement was back then in 1949 than the rather sloppy English version if I may say so of the convention's text. But it already shows you another problem. How do you deal with multilingual treaties which differ so considerably in their wording? Of course the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties which would I think reflect customer international law would give you some idea. Article 31 and 32 would give you some guidance. But again, this is pretty difficult to make people understand if they are so focused on the English version which has been well more or less the version used by most navies in the world I'm afraid. This does not mean that the French version is not used but unfortunately the lingua franca, think of this lingua franca, is not French but English. And so this makes it very difficult in particular when I talk to anglophone naval officers to make them understand that there's also an authentic French text which you have to take into consideration when you are interpreting the respective treaty and they are asking me, you are saying that as a German? Well, I said yes, I do. Another issue is what means, the convention refers to means of communication. Of course in the old days they had wireless apparatus in mind which was already well in place since the beginning of the 20th century. And you have to understand that states were always very suspicious vis-à-vis means of communications used by hospital ships because during both world wars there was a considerable abuse by the parties to the conflict, by abusing hospital ships for transmitting intelligence data to their respective headquarters which would then enable them to take operations against the enemy. So today we would say well this may all be settled but what do we understand by means of communication today? Is it a smart phone? What about digitalization? What about protecting your means of communication against unauthorized intrusion and so on and so forth? And this is all closely related to the question of whether and to what extent you are using and are violating the convention by using a secret code for communications purposes. Other developments such as the decreasing number of hospital ships are already mentioned and just imagine now, there are so many coastal rescue craft out there and don't think about coastal rescue craft as those in place in 1949. Today coastal rescue craft are probably not any longer coastal in character but they are very sophisticated vessels that can go out into high seas areas far away from the coastline and they are doing a very, very good job. But how does their protection under the second convention match the realities of today? So the convention, as I said, protects them only in so far as operational requirements permit. But what does that mean? And finally, because I have to keep in time, there are the notorious IMO convention that come into play. There are two important ones which I may want to mention at the safety of life at sea convention on the one hand and the maritime search and rescue convention on the other hand. If you look at the obligations laid down in those treaties, well, there are some similarities but there are some considerable differences between the obligations under those IMO conventions on the one hand and the second Geneva on the other hand. Remember, after each engagement and subject to possibility, that's article 18. Whereas the IMO convention are much stricter. So the question then arises, what impact do those conventions have on the interpretation and application of the second Geneva convention? And the problem is there is no answer. There is no answer. And that was one of the big difficulties we encountered when we were dealing with article 27 on coastal rescue craft. Of course, you can imagine that the International Maritime Rescue Federation had certain ideas, but which are legitimate, don't misunderstand me. Of course, they would have a legitimate interest in increasing the protection of coastal rescue craft as far as possible during armed conflict. And there were already in the past various efforts undertaken to improve their protection, but all of them were in vain, all of them. So this now brought up the difficulty of how do we deal with those conventions? So, well, I think the best answer is, we must not ignore them, but we cannot say, we cannot say that the standards under those peacetime instruments, which they are, can easily be transferred two times of armed conflict, in particular times of international armed conflict. It may be a good idea, but the main fact or the mere fact that something may be a good idea does not necessarily mean that it reflects the law as it stands today. And if you look at state practice, there is none, there is none. There's no official government statement as to the protection of coastal rescue craft in armed conflict, other than those referring explicitly to Article 27 of the Second Geneva Convention. So I'm a strong believer in state practice. I am a little bit a positivist, I'm afraid. So I would rather look at what states are actually saying and doing. And so the outcome of this problem is, or the solution to this problem is, the Geneva Convention prevails over peacetime instruments. For good reasons, I think, because the drafters did know their job, and not too much has changed, even though the technology has advanced. And at the end of the day, we have to understand that all those vessels operating in support of those who are in distress at sea will hopefully, in most cases, be respected anyway. But of course, the convention has a less strict standard that applies to them than we or others may want the law to be. Thank you very much for your attention. Lost my microphone? Thank you very much. And I'm sorry we've got limited time because certainly what you highlighted, Wolf, was not only some of the key issues, but also some of the challenges that those of us involved in the process have had to come to terms with.  As I mentioned, you do have their full details there, but I think what is incredibly important for us is that we've established a wealth of knowledge on the subject, and we're looking forward to having the discussion now. Things that aren't in the biography, though, that I think is really important to mention is, for example, Elizabeth is a member of the editorial committee, and she was so in the first update to the first Geneva Convention, and that involves hours and hours of work, and particularly looking at very small footnotes altogether. So thank you, Elizabeth, for that. We also have a number of the other colleagues that were involved in both being peer reviews and involved in writing the commentaries themselves, elements of them. So we've got an excellent panel here today. So I have just a couple of questions to start with, and I wondered whether I could hear from each of you on this first, and then we'll have a bit of a discussion. So perhaps start with you, Eureka. In your both personal, but also professional opinion and experience, what do you see as the most significant issue that this updating of the commentary has highlighted, and why in your opinion? Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, I first would like to start off by thanking ICRC for having me here. It's a great honor and privilege to be a part of this important event, and I also would like to congratulate the ICRC team for finalizing this commentary. As I peer reviewed its draft, I was really impressed by its quality and the extensiveness of the analysis of the, and the information it covered. Now answering to your question, I think one of the most significant issues that the commentary had dealt with was the scope of this people protected under this convention, as was raised by Professor Afon Hynek. The commentary explicitly took a position to protect the very interest of the Unded 6N Shipwrecked, or WSS, in the spirit of humanity as far as it matches with the text. It is notable because in a sense, IHL is a principle based on a state-centric framework, just like international law in general. When the humanitarian consideration hindered the pursuit of the military necessity, states simply cannot agree with the rule, and Geneva Conventions recognized rights bestowed directly individuals, but the categories of such individuals are strictly defined. In particular, the law of naval warfare was developed mostly to promote the national security interest, and the second Geneva Convention inherited the basis for regulating the combat operations at sea. Now Professor Afon Hynek explained the categories of article 13, but as the professor mentioned, while the convention provided the crew members of the merchant vessels to the parties of the conflict is protected under this convention, it did not touch upon the crews and passengers of the neutral merchant vessels liable to attack or destruction at the economic warfare. The first additional protocol expanded the definition of the shipwrecked to include any individual who are in ferry at sea or and who refrain from any act of hostility. However, the second Geneva Convention and the first additional protocol are the separate instruments. The second Geneva Convention had achieved mostly the universal acceptance, but that was not the case for this protocol. So I'd like to highlight the commentary's approach, which appears elsewhere, but it is particularly clear when we compared the present commentary with the pictures commentary, which was published in 1960. So I'd like to introduce a couple of instances to highlight my point. Now the first is the comment on article 16, which provides that the WSS, on the 6th shipwrecked of a prisoner who fall into enemy hands shall be a prisoner of war or POW, the provision of international law concerning POW shall apply to them. Now the 1960 commentary stated that the hospital ship cannot take prisoner wounded or shipwrecked members of the enemy forces. If it rescues them at sea or receives them from a ship of their own nationality, they must not be considered as being POW. That commentary reason that it would be an act of war if a hospital ship were to capture a military personnel who are holding by force. According to this interpretation, the party in whose hands WSS are may not exercise any of the powers of the flow from POW over those persons and should enemy personnel on the hospital ship begin exercise powers over them that go beyond the powers necessary to provide medical care and treatment, then the WSS must be considered as POW and title to the protection of the third convention. Now the current commentary took a different approach. It explicitly stated that the WSS who are being cared by the enemy and forces may be considered to have fallen into enemy hands and are POW without the personnel of the medical unit or hospital ship being considered have committed an act of war. It also states that the WSS prison on board of an enemy hospital ships have POW status and NRA title to the rights sits down in the third convention. So in conclusion, there's not so much material differences, but this current commentary's interpretation not only serves the interest of WSS but also provides clarity and simplicity compared to the previous interpretation. Now the second instance is the comment on article 17 which provides that the WSS persons who are landed in neutral ports shall be so guarded by the neutral power were so required by international law that the third persons cannot again take part in operations of war. Now the 1960 commentary states that this provision was intended to cover only wounded persons landed in neutral territory by a provision ship worship but not the WSS brought by hospital ship or neutral merchant vessels. This interpretation reflects a traditional understanding that the treatment of WSS into neutral port depends on the category of the vessels on which they arrived. Now the present commentary points out that the text of the provision is silent on the status of the vessels which brought the WSS. It points out that the requirements of international law which is to be found outside of this convention has been unsettled or unclear and it then argues that the requirements under international law on this matter should be the same regardless of the status of the vessel on which they arrived. It is because that the opposite view would lead to unjustifiable and discriminatory differences in treatment persons who share the same legal status namely WSS members of the armed forces of the party to the conflict. Again, this not only benefits the individuals but also provides clear clarity and consistency among the rules. There are some other parts that where you can find that the commentary took an comprehensive approach taking into account not only treaty instruments but also customary international humanitarian law. It specifically emphasizes that the obligation to treat WSS humanely and to provide them with medical care apply in both international and non-international conflicts and regardless of whether the individual is made a U.S. civilian under the existing law. This is a simple guideline and thus be useful when there is a case in doubt. I think also it is important that the ICRC demonstrated these interpretations which is in accordance with its missions and commentary takes into account the relevant subsequent practices concerning not only IHL but also the law of the sea and international criminal law and consolidate these developments into the interpretation of this convention. So I think it goes without saying that the update commentary will be an indispensable source both for practitioners and academics. Thank you very much to highlight the comprehensive changes and some of those updates. Perhaps I'll move on to you, Azari, and what do you think is most significantly highlighted in your both experience both with the ICRC but also your long history in this area? First, let me thank ICRC for having me here and also for having distinguished audience listen to what the panel is. Saying about the launching of the GC2 commentaries. Now I'll be coming in the viewpoint of an operator after serving 37 years with the Royal Mission Navy. So I'm looking at it at the perspective of an operator who's commanding a ship out there at sea and in a conflict and facing all this obligation that is being given to me posted to me by the GC2 commentaries and also the GC2. Now in particular that I'm looking at is just these two articles in which would briefly bring out the effort of what ICRC, the peers, reviewer have been doing. They are able to balance within what military necessity means in interpreting the conventions and also what humanitarian needs are. One of the articles that has already been touched by Professor Woof is article 18. When he talks about the mandatory requirement of the word shall and take all possible measures to recover to rescue those who have shipwreck, wounded, sick or injured. Now coming from a guide like a commander of a vessel that's supposed to move from point A to point B and in between while traveling from point A to point B meets the enemy forces and they engage. Now the question is after each engagement, the wording is after each engagement shall recover the wounded and safe and shipwreck. Does the commander have the responsibility at that particular moment to do the search and rescue and to recover? Taking them on board, putting it on his vessel to go to point B would put these people on his ship in a predicament. He might be putting them in more danger than even leaving them in water. So the word shall here doesn't mean that the obligation is he's alone. He can transfer that obligation to his commander at the rear. Meaning he will still continue his mission, reaching point B and the responsibility goes back to the commander of that forces to send in any other person who will be able to carry out the rescue work, right? Now looking also in the perspective of the commander of the vessel and the commander of vessel that in a military ship you have got less food, less water, your life rough would probably be only enough for your men. You will not be able to spare a few giving to those people who are in a water shipwreck. So again, that's the race being in a conflict but the discussion that entails in that article itself gives the responsibility to the next commander who would then decide whether he have the obligation to send his own forces or give it to another humanitarian organization and that humanitarian organization can do all the rescue, the coastal craft can come in to do rescues and all this thing. Now again, in article 14, it balances the rights of military necessity and the humanitarian needs. If you look at article 14, it talks about handing over of the wounded and sick and shipwreck to belligerent forces.  A belligerent has the right to ask for the, its own nationality to be surrendered to them and of course it also has the right to ask for the belligerent parties, soldiers, shipwrecks to be handed over to them. While it looks at the rise of the belligerent to enforce and to use this provision, but it also discusses that the test, if you are going to take over this people to put it on board your ship, then there are about two tests that you have got to comply with. First, if you're gonna move the wounded and sick, you have to ensure that the commander of that military vessels has got the means and the equipment to take care of those wounded and sick. Or the next test that is given by article 14 is that when a warship, they look at the wounded and wounded, is based on sound medical judgment. So a position will be able to tell saying that whether that particular person can be moved and can be transferred. But there's a question when on further by saying you need not put them on board your ship, you can divert the military, divert the hospital ship to the port and then where the transfer can be done on land. So you don't have to put this particular people of the sick and wounded in parallel by taking them and move them around. No military has got enough medical facilities on board. They may probably have got sleep bay, but not the equipment that is available on board the hospital ship. So it balance the need for military necessity, operation and humanitarian needs. Thank you very much. That is also very important to be able to hear from those who've had the experience. So thank you. Lisbon, in your views, what do you think is most significantly highlighted? Thank you. Okay, good. What I think is most significant, I find that very hard to say. The commentary covers such a broad range of issues, but since the question was raised, I wanted to pick one issue and that is the mere fact of revising the commentary to the Second Geneva Convention. And I'm saying this because of course the ICRC took the decision to do a vision of all the commentaries and I think that is a very useful decision. It's a huge chunk of work, but looking specifically at the Second Convention, I think rewriting, reviewing that commentary is quite a daunting task. We haven't had much naval warfare since the drafting of the Second Convention. Now, that's first of all, of course, good news. That's important to keep in the back of our mind, but if you want to look at, well, how would we read the Second Geneva Convention today? That makes it, I think, a quite difficult task, not just for the ICRC team, who have done an excellent job, not just for all the peer reviewers and everybody else who's worked on this. It's been a quite large group of people who have worked on this, but there is very little practical experience. There have been very few naval conflicts since the creation of the Second Geneva Convention and the first version, the pique-tête commentary. So that makes it perhaps a difficult task. And I think Professor von Heineck pointed out that some of the aspects of the Convention are quite dated. Of course, if you revise a commentary, that means that you're talking about change. You're talking about changes in the reality of what naval operations are. You're talking about change between what it used to be just after the Second World War. Of course, there is this saying, as everybody knows, that particularly in the field of international humanitarian law, the rules are developed looking back at the past conflicts and you'll need them for future conflicts. So there is likely to be, it will never completely fit. So that's exactly where the commentaries will have an important role. There has been quite a lot of change, I think, since 1949 when the Second Convention was drafted, since, I think, the early 1960s when the Pigtail commentary was drafted. There has been a change in terms of their, well, I mentioned not very many naval wars. There has been change with respect to the role of hospital ships. Professor von Heineck already alluded to that. There has been a change in the way in which humanity uses the oceans. There has been a huge increase of shipping. The type of shipping has changed. You get these pictures which illustrate major shipping routes. We've moved with the advent of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea of 1982. We've created quite clear systems of archipelagic states and the archipelagic waters. We have specific rules on straits. So the management system, and I'm saying it like that because there are, of course, lots of issues you could say with respect to do we really have a management system in the oceans. But the ideas as to what could happen at sea, the extension of maritime zones really grown quite a lot, sort of 200 miles out, of course. There are stories to that, different types of authority in all the different maritime zones. So the general worldwide framework of the Law of the Sea has changed dramatically since 1949. And that raises a very general question as to how does the Second Geneva Convention fit with the Law of the Sea Convention? Law of the Sea Convention itself doesn't tell us much about the laws of naval warfare. Somewhere, and I couldn't remember which provision it is, but somewhere there's language in the Law of the Sea Convention talking about the peaceful use of the oceans. That's hardly surprising. It's the UN Convention and, of course, in the system of the charter. We're looking at reducing armed conflict and the prohibition of aggression and all of that. So it's not very surprising that there is nothing in particular about naval warfare in the Law of the Sea Convention, but it's the day-to-day standard for what happens at sea and at Second Geneva Convention, and I would also say some of the eight conventions and the San Remo Manual, they're applicable in the unusual situation of armed conflict at sea. At the same time, and that has hardly changed, naval warfare is quite different from warfare on land. On land, in traditional warfare, you would likely know where the battlefield is, and anyone with some common sense would never go there. In naval warfare, you probably have a sense of where the battlefield is, but that's not really a given. The ocean space is shared probably by states having an armed conflict with each other and many other states. The ocean space, particularly the high seas, are open to all states. So there is this aspect of what's exactly the role of third states. Now, regretfully, the whole matter, the whole matter of neutrality, the consequences of neutrality, that's sort of neither here nor there. It's not in the Law of the Sea Convention. It's not very clear in the Second Convention either. That has not changed. Many other things have changed. I think that my most important significant issue is the fact that in spite of all this change, in spite of recognizing that Second Convention was a bit of an odd one out, not much practice, lots of technological development. In spite of that, we got to work on it, and I think we've got to commend the team at the ICRC for pushing everybody somewhere in the project to get it done, so well done for that. Thank you for that. Great to hear your views and the idea that the most significant thing was actually doing it. That's always good.  Rob was one of the peer reviewers, and we were commenting today, sent hundreds and hundreds of comments, so thank you for that. We spent a lot of time looking at track changes. I think with your experience, both as a naval officer yourself as well as your academic experience, it's very rich to have your involvement in the process and to have you here today. So with that in mind, what do you think was most significant in this updating? Thanks, Helen, and thanks to the ICRC. It's a great pleasure and honor to be here. And I should also say that as a peer reviewer, I went through this process with my colleague, our new David Litz. So much of what I say, really all of what I say is a combination of what he and I did together with peer review together. I could be so bold to say everything sensible, I say as mine everything, that's pretty silly, it's probably his, but I couldn't get away with that. I think the most significant issue the updated commentary has highlighted is in fact the need to demystify and promote knowledge and application, knowledge on the application of Geneva Convention 2. To paraphrase Latterpack, he once said that in international law, the law of conflict, IHL was at the very vanishing point of international law. That's true, but even more to the point is the fact that the law of naval warfare is at the vanishing point of IHL.  The dealing with the application of IHL at sea is really something that's so specialized and so technical that only a very few people have the backgrounds or God forbid, the twisted interest to be involved in doing so. So what I think that this updated commentary on Geneva Convention 2 has done is to actually take significant steps towards demystifying Geneva Convention 2 and perhaps overcoming that perception amongst the general IHL community that it is something that's highly technical and requires certain specialized knowledge. Now, to some extent this is true because the application of IHL at seas needs to be understood in relation to the other pillars that guide how IHL is understood at sea. So if you're talking about the law of naval warfare, you're actually talking about four different things. You're talking about the application of IHL at sea. You're talking about the law of maritime neutrality. You're talking about prize law, often forgotten part. And then you're talking about the thing that sort of underpins it all dimensionally now, which as Elizabeth was talking about is the law of the sea convention. So trying to demystify that combination by producing a commentary that clearly links the provisions in Geneva Convention 2 back to the wider corpus of IHL I think has been a very significant and a very commendable achievement. Thank you, that's really interesting. And I think this idea about the nature of having to put together all the different legal frameworks or different treaties is something that certainly came up time and time again in the process and also the other organizations to be engaged with. Okay, let's move on to a second question. And I'm sure that if you don't mind, we'll bring in our keynote speaker as well for that. What impact do you think from a practical point of view in practice, in particularly as it pertains to those involved in this industry or this area, what practical impact do you think this updated commentary will have? Well, I don't think it's an industry. Oh, no, no, I have to pick on you. Oh, I love it when you pick on me. But I think for those involved, whether it be policymakers, whether it be practitioners, whether it be academics. So the sector, let's use the word the sector. Well, I think if you look at the commentary that it now stands, and if you compare it to the first big T commentary, you can also already tell by the length of the commentary that it is today far more detailed than it was back then in the 1960s. That was on the one hand, the charm of the first commentary, this very generic approach of someone who had been part of the discussions and deliberations and who knew the backgrounds of the conference and of the preliminary steps that were taken. However, the commentary with all due respect to Jean-Pique Thé, don't misunderstand me, it does not provide answers any longer to up-to-date contemporary questions and they are absolutely agree with Rob. We had to demystify it a little bit. That is one very important aspect that nothing is left in a cloud any longer, but, and that is the big accomplishment of the commentary on the Second Geneva Convention, it's detailed character. I think all of us involved, the peer reviewers included, the reading committee included and so on and so forth, and of course last but not least, all of you from the ICRC. We have tried our very best to consider any scenario which might occur with regard to the application, let's say, of Rue Article 18 or other articles, like Article 27. And this is, I think, the big benefit any practitioner and not only naval operators but also policy makers, decision makers will have from the commentary is there they will find answers. Maybe not absolute answers, maybe not 100%, you can never accomplish that, I'm sure, but since it's the most honest effort to update the commentary to modern challenges, it provides answers and that is something which one should not underestimate. You may not be happy about the answer, who is ever happy with an interpretation given by others, but they cannot simply ignore those interpretations and they will have to reconcile their practice, their policy, their doctrine to what the commentary has said or they must take a clear position against the commentary which I think would be rather difficult today. It would have been more easy had there been no second edition of the commentary. Thank you very much. And moving on to our next panelist, what do you think is the strongest impact in practice? For the commentary to have the practical impact, I think it is important that the commentary took a well-balanced position between the military necessity and humanity. And as I previously mentioned, the commentary on one hand prioritized the humanitarian needs as far as it matches the text. But on the other hand, the commentary took a relatively strict standpoint with regards to the non-compliance with the conditions of protection so that the convention would not hinder the military necessity of states. So for example, under the convention, vessels which exclusively provides humanitarian assistance in partially to the WSS, particularly the hospital ships, are granted special protection at all times. The commentary fully grasps the state's concern that the hospital ship might maybe be misused at the time of war. Therefore, it made clear that there should be nothing secret in the behavior of the hospital ship with a VD enemy. And I think that's one of the most important thing that for the commentary to have practical importance. And I'd like to shed light on a couple of instance to illustrate this point. The first one is on the issue whether weapons designed for counter terrorist attacks are allowed to be equipped in the hospital ships. Now the text of Geneva Convention does not respond to a problem raised by the possibility of the attacks by so-called suicide boats against hospital ships. In order to counter such an attack, the ship may have to be armed in excess of what was expected at the time of the draft of the convention. And Article 35 provides that the fact that the crew of the ships are armed for their defense shall not be considered as depriving the status of the hospital ships. The commentary takes a careful view stating that it is highly difficult, if not impossible, to clearly distinguish between the defensive and potentially offensive nature of arms other than light or portable individual weapons so that having such heavy weapons should not be allowed. Now the summary manual of 1994 states that the hospital ship may be equipped with purely defensive means of defense such as shafts or flares and that the presence of such equipment should be notified. Now the commentary distinguished this issue, the issue of weapons of purely defensive means and the issue of counter terrorist attacks, referring to the proposal in 1907 to allow hospital ships to be equipped with arms capable of repelling pirate attacks are rejected, was rejected. It does tries to prevent states from abusing the rights provided in the use of the hospital ship. Now I think the issue remains whether we could equate pirates at the time of 1907 with terrorists in 21st century or whether the change in technology of weapons of the criminals should affect the conclusion. But this interpretation shows that commentary's effort to take a right balance between the military necessity and humanitarian consideration and I think it's an important thing. The other issue is on the condition for the coastal rescue crafts to be protected which were shortly provided as under article 27 as Professor from Highland raised in his keynote speech. So unlike the hospital ships, the convention is silent on the consequences for rescue crafts that are used to commit acts harmful to the enemy outside their humanitarian duties. So it has not been settled whether at go 35, sorry, 34, which provides on this continuous of the protection and at go 35, which provides condition not depriving hospital ships of protection would apply to those rescue crafts as these provision omit the reference to the rescue crafts. Now the commentary takes a view that these provisions do not apply directly to the rescue crafts, mainly to let them do their essential roles such as the humanitarian tasks and other operational activities that are different from those from hospital ships. For instance, the commentary states that the omission of a reference to the craft of article 34 relays the enemy from the procedural safeguards such as do warning because it might have been difficult to extend those procedures for their size and speed. In other parts, it states that the transport of surplus equipment and personnel as provided for in article 35 will not be of any practical relevance because of the function and the nature of those vessels. So I think this kind of interpretation is another instance of the commentary's work to take the good balance between the two interests and it should have the practical impact. And lastly, I'd like to take this occasion that for the to announce that in two weeks there is, there will be a seminar in Tokyo co-organized by ICRC Tokyo and National Institute for Defense Studies at the Japanese Ministry of Defense Research Institute. And that will welcome our chief legal advisor, Mr. Bruno de Mayer as the main speaker and talk about this convention. And I'm saying this because for the commentary to have the practical impact, the dissemination effort is necessary. And I look forward to the further discussion there. Thank you. Thank you very much. And certainly as you said, it's discussing, it's dissemination, it's really important which I think this process in itself has started. Over to you, sir. What do you think is the most, from your point of view, most practical, which will have an impact on practice? I think the most practical impact to operators and policy makers, I would agree more with what Professor Woof and my colleague had been saying is it updates, it brings into discussion of all the articles of the Geneva Convention too and it brings out new and it offers a solution to the states. One example of it is the discussion, the detailed discussion of paragraph eight of article 43, which brings to state to have an agreement with another state to bring approach, the modern approach in identifying hospitals here. Granted in 1949, hospital leadership, the fighting, the war was basically at a close quarter, people were fighting each other at a very close distance. And what was said in the keynote address by tomorrow and also by Professor Woof, that we are now facing a situation where missiles are being fired over a distance, over a horizon. You're not able to see the target, but then you're using technology in order to hit your target and you do not want the target that you hit being the hospital ship. Now, the discussion of paragraph eight brings about drawing policy makers states to have an agreement to ensure that errors are not made, hospital ships are not being targeted. See. Thank you. From your, as a very eminent both academic but also policy and government advisor, will this be practical? I thought I'd like to pick up on another angle. What I felt was quite an important discussion that we had was a discussion about, okay, second Geneva Convention and all those important conventions from the IMO. IMO is an important body. It's the specialist UN organization dealing with shipping. I think that we came to the right conclusion. Obviously, I think that we came to the right conclusion. Let me put it in a positive manner. I fully subscribe to the conclusion that we came to. I'm not sure if we need to go into the positive or not the positivist or not the debate. However, it brings out another interesting question and I would hope of putting on my hat as a law professor. I would hope that that would trigger a further reflection on the second convention. This whole issue of how do all these conventions sit together? So last, the convention on the safety of life at sea, quite an important convention for seafarers or for anyone who happens to end up in the water for whatever reason. The SAR convention, Search and Rescue, which sort of divides sections of the oceans, the ocean into sections and tells us which coastal has to go out and pick you up if you're in the water. It strikes me that there are elements there of the leg specialist discussion. Now, we've embarked on that discussion with respect to the fourth Geneva Convention. Work on that hasn't even started, I think so. That's for the future. So the discussion that was in part triggered by the wall opinion of the International Court of Justice, the relationship between a Geneva Convention, fourth Geneva Convention in that case, and human rights law. For me, there are quite a lot of similarities with this discussion between second Geneva Convention and these very useful protective conventions from the IMO. I think we're not at the end of the debate. I think that debate is starting. I think it's a very good suggestion to my students to maybe think about writing something about that. I'm going to do that. Excellent. So perhaps also many PhDs might flourish from these books. Rob, if you were back as a senior military officer in the Navy, would you have this book on your shelf and would it be useful? What practical import? Yes, for two reasons. The first is that this, as Wolf has talked about, the 1960 commentary is beautiful. It's almost a piece of literature, but it's not really something that you could read today and gain a great deal of technical detail as to how GC2 should be applied. So I think the very first thing in practice that this new commentary will achieve is to provide the baseline, a very articulate baseline with a great level of detail from which to have the discussions, the discussions that Elizabeth's talking about, that Azari and Erika are talking about. So that is something we haven't had for a long time. And so I think that having just this very well articulated position to go from, which is very extensively referenced and tells you where these ideas have been sourced from and how the analysis has been done is a very significant practical point. The second point I'd make is that this updated commentary fills a gap in the spectrum of guidance, let's say, that as a naval lawyer or a naval operator, you've tended to work with over a long period of time. So for a long period of time, we've had a series of commentaries on the 907 Hague conventions that apply to naval warfare, including some quite modern and recent commentary, and that's very useful. We've also had, as a number of panellists have talked about, the San Remo Manual on the Laws of Naval Warfare, or the application of international laws applies to naval warfare at sea. And that is a vital part of our spectrum of working out how all the law applies when you deal with war at sea. Now, it's a little dated in its own right, needs a little bit of updating, but it's still really the place you go to. But those together really have dealt primarily with means and methods in the Law of Naval Warfare. What has been missing in that spectrum of sort of policy, a place to go to for guidance, has been the bit which GC2 provides about protection in the humanitarian aspects. And so I think in many respects, the updated commentary actually fills that gap at last and that you can have on your bookshelf the commentaries on the 907 Hague conventions you can have the San Remo Manual and you can have Geneva Convention 2 updated commentary and you've pretty much got what you need in order to deal with the basics where to go if you're looking for an answer, a quick answer, or somewhere to start from to talk about the application of law in naval warfare. Wonderful, well thank you. I think we're right on time, so I'd like to thank the panel for that because it's important that we demonstrate the ship shape and able to get through what we need to do. Thank you for your insights and stimulating ideas. I think it's certainly given us a lot to go on and I do think that this process in and of itself is also about starting conversations and spreading these conversations globally so thank you for that. As you may have heard the second Geneva Convention has sometimes got a reputation of being the most difficult of the Geneva Conventions but we really do hope that this afternoon has done what a number of our speakers said to start to demystify what we see as critical humanitarian protections that are required at sea. And we're also really delighted to see how many people came out today on a rainy Geneva day but to actually come and listen and after we finish we would warmly welcome you to come and join us for a cocktail. It'll be upstairs. We didn't have time for questions but if you've got a very particularly sneaky technical question please approach the panelists or one of my expert colleagues to be able to discuss that. Now in the meantime my dear colleagues in the Cometries project and also across ICRC are starting work on the third Geneva Convention. And ladies and gentlemen the second Geneva Convention had 63 articles but going ahead the third Geneva Convention I think has 143 articles. So watch this space for a lot of hard work and a lot of discussions and we will just to let you know we'll be launching the third Geneva Convention in 2019. So make sure you have a good cocktail today because it'll be a little while before you get the next one. So stay tuned. So look, thank you again. My sincere thanks to the panelists. They've come from all the way across the globe. I think it's been extraordinary to hear the different nuances and the different experiences. And I may also thank my colleagues and play tribute to my colleagues particularly Jean-Marie and his team and very particularly to Bruno who's really I think dreamed, lived, breathed the law of the sea for many years and we hope you do it for many more years. But I think that's really extraordinary. I'd also like to pay tribute to Knut Dormann who's here, chief legal officer in the room and also to Professor Marco Sasserli who I think is hiding over there who also is on the reading committee and also the other work, the editorial, pardon the editorial committee. You see I'm going on the script. The editorial committee which have played a strong role and also to other colleagues, academics and others that are being involved in this sort of work and looking at updating these commentaries. So ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for your attendance. Please come and join us for a drink and do ask those difficult questions over a glass of wine. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.


So, status update for the TSS2 user space. This is kind of a milestone for us. In past, well, conferences like this, LSS and a few others, we've done some talks about this, but they've always been focused on the large architecture, what the APIs are, how the plumbing works, how everything fits together. And of course then, the evolution of the project from a really rough prototype to our goals and aspirations to having a real stable piece of infrastructure that people just rely on and use like it's part of the ecosystem. And so today, doing this as an update, it's kind of mission accomplished. I'm doing a lot less work these days. The presentations are shorter. They're much less complicated. And I'm fighting through far, far fewer bugs than we used to. Plus, our community has grown quite a bit, which is really nice. So today I'm doing a status update and I'll cover just this past year our progress on the core libraries, things that I think of as just the plumbing. And then we'll move on to work to enable the use of the TPM through plugins to existing kind of cryptographic frameworks and well-used programming APIs and such. Then finally, we're just going to close on a little bit of what you would expect, which is kind of forward-looking. Things we'll be doing in the future. And things we'll be looking for some input from you all on. Things you may actually want to contribute to if you're interested in getting going. But first, the plumbing. So our goals have always been for this to really improve the maturity of the project, get a real good release cadence down, add new features without destabilizing APIs, really what you would expect from a mature project. We've got a new GitHub.io page now. So we're working on improving our documentation, which is not as much fun as doing the coding, but it's kind of just part of the business. We've got our code coverage metrics that we're collecting through all of our CI loops. We've reached 80% average for the project. Some are a bit above, some are a bit below, but 80% on average. We've also started doing some work with the Linux Foundation's the core infrastructure initiative. So we've gone through the self-certification process for these core libraries through the CI, which is nice to get a little badge on your readme file on GitHub, and I don't know, everyone thinks you're special for it. So the core libraries themselves, the TPM2-TSS repository, that houses the real guts of the project. So we've done three minor releases this year, no major releases, which is nice. The APIs are stable, and we're hitting a good release cadence of every four or five months. We've added a couple or we've added a new library to help with user experience.  One of the first things that I did for the project was to write a tool that did this on the command line, but still no one ever uses it. We still get people to just send us, you know, the hex digits over the mailing list and ask us to decode them for them. But we turned it into a library and we're starting to integrate this library into the project, so you should be getting much, much more understandable messages out of there. That's already done and out there. The TCTi loader got a little stuck. The TCG does all the documents or all the specifications in Word files. I'm not particularly great with Microsoft Word, so I kind of screwed it up. It was supposed to be in public review now, but it got held up for a week because I don't know Word all that well. But it's under review now. That should be out hopefully for public review next week. And, you know, the next major thing we're pushing towards here is the feature API. This is something that we had a, you know, there's been a public review version of this out for almost five years now, but there's been a lot of churn since and we should have another version of this out, hopefully with an implementation following it. This is something that our friends and collaborators at Infineon and Frownhofer have been working on with us. So that's not out just yet, but you should be seeing that sometime in the fall. The tools, the command line tools, probably the things that people use the most and has seen a whole lot of churn this year. We've done two minor releases since the last LSS and just yesterday, Bill Roberts who has been pushing a lot of this forward, actually has been the main driving force behind it, put out the first release candidate for our 4.0 release of the tools. This is a big improvement in that it aligns all of our command line parameters that were unfortunately a bit scattered in the past. So Bill sunk a lot of time into cleaning this up and we're very grateful for that stuff. Also, this 4.0 release has been a port with the tools. Previously they had used one of the very low level APIs, the system API, which really wasn't intended for use at this level, but it was the only thing we had available when we started the project. Now that we have an implementation of the enhanced system API that wraps up a lot of the details that the tools used to do themselves, the tools now gets things like auth session support and much better, hopefully, support of the long run too. So all of the session support means we can do things like sessions with the TPM, so HMAX, and stuff like that. The resource manager, the user space resource manager is kind of being used less and less as the one in the kernel gets more features and distros pick up newer kernels. So we've only had two minor releases since the last LSS. In those releases, I've added context gap handling, fixed some bugs in our partial read support of the TCTI layer. That's the transport layer. And largely, I've just been focusing on stability there. So in enabling some of the existing use cases that we're trying to go for, we've developed an open SSL engine that plugs into the existing engine API and we have support in the 1.0 release that happened, I think, back in the spring. The open SSL command works so you can get random digits or you can get random data from the TPM. RSA, ECDSA commands work. Some of the X509, like request, the certificate request, will also work as well, so you could sign certificate requests with the key that's in the TPM. We did a presentation in a demo at FOSSTEM in the spring and there's a great demo of the S server using a doing an SSL connection to a client where the server has its key in the TPM. This is the work of Andreas Fuchs, one of our collaborators from Germany in Fraunhofer. The PKCS11 work got a little bit slowed down on account of a couple people in a little bit of attrition. It's hard to hold on to good help and that got held up a bit while Bill was focusing on the tools release. So it's usable now for authentication and we have that link there as to a commit where to adding some documentation for using the PKCS11 plug-in with OpenSSL for authentication. The nice thing about this though is that we're able... We're going to align it now with the feature API work because a PKCS11 library or plug-in rather needs to have some kind of storage so that it can basically be the token that you would expect to be on a smart card. This means you had to implement a database, a key database, which is something that's going to be in the feature API anyways. And so holding up that work wasn't a bad thing because it means that we can just rebase it on this API that we were hoping to have out by the end of the year and then we get the key database for free, which is really nice. Finally, myself, I've been focusing a bit on enabling some UEFI use cases. This last year was a prototype but it's moved into the proper project now and I've set up a whole pile of automated testing using the software TPM, OVMF firmware, QMU, UEFI shell. I've got a whole bunch of example code that's up there now and all of those things run in CI. So when we do a build of this, it kicks off a Travis build that actually will set up a full virtual environment to run the UEFI under, which is pretty interesting to set up. It's really useful. I've got a little bit of a blog post down there describing it. Now, finally, things that we're heading towards in the next year is actually some stuff that's kind of going to happen pretty quickly, I hope. We've had an RFC out there from Fraunhofer for some bindings to Python since about January. They used the FFI interface and it wasn't particularly object-oriented, so we went back and took a look and decided to go the route of using Swig, SetupPy, and it uses much more of what you'd expect from Python objects. That's imminent. It's right now under review inside of Intel before public release, so Intel is getting pretty rigid about reviewing stuff before it goes out the door. It's open source and it's got cotton in it and it's going to get a pretty good look before it gets out the door, so I can't say exactly when it's going to be there, but we're hoping it's going to be soon and we're hoping to go the same route for additional languages. More bindings, more support, just makes it more usable for everyone else. Crypt Setup and support for LUX has been a pull request against the Crypt Setup repo for about eight months now. They're finally starting to make some progress on it. They didn't want to implement or use the TPM APIs directly. They want to have kind of a layer in between them so that they can support generic tokens, and so it looks like we're going to be the first use case for this token interface in Crypt Setup, and that's a link right there to the merge request that Andreas put up a while back, and you can see some of the notes from the folks at Crypt Setup that are working on it. Finally, myself, I've been looking like I was saying at some of the firmware stuff and so I've been parsing some of that event log information and as more and more of these kind of disparate formats come together and folks probably heard Monty talking about this unified format for these things, it might be useful for us to have some kind of standard API there. There's no work on that just yet. I've got a pile of code that does it, but I think eventually we're going to have to make a library so that folks that are implementing attestation responders and verifiers will have some help and won't have to write it all themselves from scratch. That's it. So if anyone has any questions, we've got, you can go to any of the project sites. You can go to the github.io page. You'll find our readme's there. We have a link to our IRC channel, mailing list, instructions for submitting contributions through github and that's a great resource to get started. Any questions? Okay, thanks, Philip.