Kazakhstan has a lot to bring to IHL initiative through its experience in peacebuilding - Dr. Anne Quintin, International Committee of the Red Cross

She also discussed Kazakhstan’s contribution to mediation and peacebuilding, as well as global efforts to adapt IHL to emerging technologies such as cyber operations and artificial intelligence.

What are the main objectives of the Global Initiative on IHL that you lead? Could you share specific results or projects from recent years?

So maybe the first thing to say is to explain where this initiative comes from. It started from the observation that the reality of armed conflict today is extremely alarming. We have a whole body of law — international humanitarian law — that was created over a century ago to protect people affected by armed conflict. But this law is not applied as it should be. Otherwise, we wouldn’t see as much destruction, death, and suffering as we do today.

The growing number of violations has led six states — Brazil, China, France, Jordan, Kazakhstan, and South Africa — together with us, to unite forces and launch the initiative. The objective is really to galvanize political commitment, because we know that the only way to ensure respect for the law is through political will — especially from top leadership across the world.

This initiative is not about creating new rules or mechanisms. The law already provides the necessary solutions. What we need is the willingness, readiness, and commitment to apply it.

We’re working on several fronts. The President of the International Committee of the Red Cross is personally engaging with state leaders around the world, together with the six founding states of this initiative, to deliver a clear message that violations of the law are unacceptable.

At the same time, on a more technical level, we are engaging with experts from all continents on some of the most challenging issues of contemporary conflicts. For instance, we’re working on the protection of civilian infrastructure — looking at how to better safeguard essential services during war — and on the protection of hospitals, ensuring that the medical mission can fulfill its task of bringing much-needed aid to those affected by conflict.

So this is how we’re doing it in terms of deliverables so far. We’re not yet at the stage where we have all the final products, but there are already some achievements. Just to give an example, a couple of weeks ago, in the framework of the United Nations General Assembly, the six founding states of the initiative issued a joint statement. First, they reaffirmed their own commitment to international humanitarian law, and then they called on the rest of the international community to join the initiative and start taking concrete actions.

One of these actions is to increase budgets dedicated to IHL compliance, urging states to establish such mechanisms and to recognize that this work begins at home — by adopting domestic measures, laws, and structures necessary to prevent IHL violations.

Now we’re in the process of transforming this into a second round of consultations, leading to concrete, practical recommendations to be released next year.

As you said, in September, the Presidents of Kazakhstan, Brazil, Jordan, China, France, and South Africa, together with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), issued a statement calling for the preservation of humanity during wars. They also announced a high-level global meeting in 2026 dedicated to safeguarding humanity in times of war. What exactly will be discussed at this meeting, and is there a possibility that important documents will be signed?

This is not something that has been decided at the moment. What we know, and what the statement from the six states says, is that they have agreed to join forces and co-host a global summit at the end of next year.

However, discussions are still ongoing about what this final conference will look like and what kind of support states will provide for the final recommendations. We also want to ensure that all states have the opportunity to share their ideas on the most effective ways to support this work.

In a way, I would say that the global summit will be a key political moment to deliver a concrete message from states — but it won’t be the end of our work. Our goal is to present a set of very concrete recommendations at that conference, in one form or another.

Kazakhstan often acts as a mediator in international negotiations and peacebuilding initiatives. How does this role align with the promotion of humanitarian law norms in the region?

Kazakhstan has a lot to bring to the initiative — not only as one of the founding states but also through its experience and expertise in mediation and peacebuilding. One of the work streams of this global initiative focuses on the links between respect for international humanitarian law and peace.

And let me explain — we see, as a humanitarian organization, that respect for the laws of war, of course, those are legal obligations first and foremost, but on top of being just legal obligations, when they are respected, they create an environment that provides the conditions for the parties to a conflict to come back to the same table and start negotiating towards peace.

In a way, the fewer violations of the law we see, the more likely peace becomes. And I would say that even for a humanitarian organization, our goal is that no war should be fought without a plan to return to peace. War always brings suffering — people die, families are separated, populations are displaced, buildings are destroyed. It is not a sustainable state, so there must always be a plan to move back toward peace.

In that sense, Kazakhstan — with its mediation role and everything it has done in recent conflicts — has a great deal to contribute to this particular work stream. We’re looking at experiences of states that have been involved in mediation, both as mediators and as parties to mediation, and at how the rules of IHL can be integrated into mediation processes and peace agreements.

So in that sense, Kazakhstan, with its mediation role and everything it has done in recent conflicts, has a lot to bring to this work stream in particular.

The nature of conflict is changing in today’s world, with the use of drones, AI, and various forms of cyber weapons. How is international humanitarian law adapting to these new challenges?

I would say that, on the one hand, we are convinced that the law as it exists already contains most of the answers, even to contemporary challenges. Most of the time, it is not about a lack of rules, but rather about how to put those existing rules into practice in an evolving context.

So, for instance, one of the work streams of the Global Initiative looks at information and communications technologies — basically, the cyber world — and how information and communication technology (ICT) operations conducted during armed conflicts may have an impact in the physical world. We’re looking at how to ensure that we reduce potential harm to civilians and civilian objects.

To give you a very concrete example — how can we ensure that when an ICT operation is used to attack a military objective, given the interconnectedness of the cyber world, a hospital, for instance, is not also affected by such an operation to the point that it can no longer function? It’s also about looking at all the indirect consequences, and that’s one example.

Another example, beyond the Global Initiative, is on autonomous weapons and artificial intelligence. One of the issues we see today is that the decision-making process for targeting objects or persons is sometimes left to autonomous or AI-operated devices or systems.

And so, for us, this is where we think the line should be drawn — in the sense that the ICRC has been calling for a number of years now for new rules to address this issue and to ensure that there is always a human component in targeting decision-making processes.

Earlier, Kazinform News Agency reported that Regional Conference on Global IHL Initiative was held in Astana.