Many countries are still involved in illegal arms transfers despite having committed themselves to an international treaty to regulate the flow of such weapons, according to the ICRC. Hundreds of thousands of civilians are being killed, injured or forcibly displaced in conflicts fuelled by such transfers. “I am concerned about the gap… between the duty to ensure respect for international humanitarian law in arms transfers and the actual transfer practices of too many states,” said ICRC President Peter Maurer in a video delivered to states party to the Arms Trade Treaty, who were meeting in Mexico in August to decide on mechanisms for implementing the agreement.
It’s the stuff of science fiction: machines that make decisions about who and when to kill. Referred to as “autonomous weapons”, they’re already in use to some degree. But as more sophisticated systems are being developed we wanted to an expert in the field about whether such systems comply with international humanitarian law and what it means for humanity to give machines the power over human life and death.
In this episode, we talk with humanitarian communicator Kathy Mueller who produced our first magazine podcast series, The Wildfire Diaries, about massive wildfires in Northern Canada in 2017. We talk about that series, her many international missions, and the big changes in humanitarian communications since she began with the Canadian Red Cross almost 20 years ago.
In this episode, we talk about the power of storytelling to inform and inspire. “Storytelling is a fundamental aspect of human communication,” says our guest Prodip, a volunteer and multi-media storyteller for the Bangladesh Red Crescent. “It inspires us to be a hero of our own community.” We also speak with one such community hero, Dalal al-Taji, a longtime volunteer and advocate for inclusion of people with disabilities in emergencies response. “In disasters. persons with disabilities sometimes get forgotten.”
As migration is increasingly treated as a security matter rather than a humanitarian concern, migrants and those trying to help them are being regarded as criminals.
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