How do civilian communities negotiate with armed groups? What do people try to achieve in these negotiations? And what enables them to negotiate with an armed actor? In this episode, Katharine and Florian talk to Riyad Anwar, Ashley Jackson and Abellia Anggi Wardani about their novel research on civilian agency during the armed conflicts in Afghanistan and Myanmar.

Cited documents:

Weigand, F., Anwar, R., Neil, T. and Wardani, A.A. (2025) Agency during Armed Conflict: Everyday Life under Competing Authorities in Myanmar’s Rakhine State. Journal of Global Security Studies, 10(3), https://doi.org/10.1093/jogss/ogaf009.

Jackson, Ashley (2021) Negotiating Survival: Civilian-Insurgent Relations in Afghanistan, Hurst/Oxford University Press, 2021.

Widiatmo, D. & Wardani, A.A. (2023). Chinese War in Southeast Asia's Frontier: Contesting Kokang's Chinese Identity on Myanmar-China Border Conflict. Small Wars and Insurgencies, 34 (7).

Guest bios:

Abellia Anggi Wardani is a lecturer in the Faculty of Humanities, Universitas Indonesia, Indonesia, previously Executive Director of Knowledge Hub Myanmar and principal investigator for Exploring Community Perceptions and Coping Strategies on Violence in Rakhine State - Myanmar, funded by Creating Safer Space project - University of Aberystwyth. She received her PhD in Culture Studies from Tilburg University, the Netherlands. She was a fellow at the University of Sydney Southeast Asia Center, Center for Comparative Studies of Civil Wars at the University of Sheffield, and part of the Myanmar expert working group Folke Bernadotte Academy (FBA) Sweden. She became interested in peace and conflict issues when she joined the Geneva-based Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue from 2015 – 2021 working on conflict-affected areas in eastern Indonesia. 

Riyad Anwar is a Human Rights Impact Assessment Research Consultant at the Centre for Advocacy and Legal Consultation at the University of Hasanuddin. His research focuses on protection of displaced communities in Southeast Asia. In his previous position as Research Manager at the Knowledge-Hub Myanmar, his works prominently addressed the everyday violence and nonviolent protection of local ethnic communities in Rakhine State, Myanmar 

Ashley Jackson is a Co-Director of the Centre on Armed Groups. She has written widely on negotiating with armed groups and advised various UN agencies, NGOs and governments on humanitarian access and conflict mediation. Her first book, Negotiating Survival: Civilian-Insurgent Relations in Afghanistan (Hurst/Oxford University Press, 2021), focuses on life under Taliban rule and the nature of civilian agency in wartime. Ashley holds a PhD from the War Studies Department at King’s College London, an MSc in Gender and Development from the London School of Economics.

The Beyond Compliance Consortium is a co-productive, socio-legal research partnership that traverses the fields of international law, conflict studies, humanitarian protection work and human rights policy, and brings together these communities of scholarship and practice with people with lived experience of conflict. It is funded by UK International Development. The second season is funded by UK International Development, while the first season was funded by the Dutch Research Council (NWO).

Katharine Fortin is an Associate Professor in human rights law and international humanitarian law at the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights, Utrecht University.

Florian Weigand is the Co-Director of the Centre on Armed Groups.

How do people protect themselves in violent environments outside of ‘traditional’ war zones? And to what extent does international humanitarian law (IHL), the law of armed conflict, apply in such contexts? In this episode, Katharine and Florian talk to Chiara Redaelli and Anjan Sundaram about Mexico. Together they dive into the activism and courage of indigenous frontline environmental defenders in Mexico and explore the  difficulties, risks and benefits of applying IHL in this context.

Cited documents:

Redaelli, Chiara & Arévalo, Targeting drug lords: Challenges to IHL between lege lata and lege ferenda, International Review of the Red Cross, 105 (923), 652-673

Ted Talk, Meet our Planet’s Hidden Defenders, Anjan Sundaram, April 2024

Anjan Sundaram is an author, journalist, academic and artivist currently working on Mexico. His books include Breakup: A Marriage in Wartime, Bad News: Last Journalists in a Dictatorship and Stringer: A Reporter’s Journey in the Congo. He has reported from Central Africa, Cambodia and Mexico for Granta, the New York Times, the New York Review of Books, the Guardian and the Associated Press, among others.

Chiara Redaelli is a Senior Legal Advisor at Diakonia IHL. She is also an adjunct professor at Catholic University of Lille Lille University and La Sabana University in Colombia.  She is co-editor in chief of the Journal on the Use of Force and International Law and member of the ILA Committee on the Use of Force. 

The Beyond Compliance Consortium is a co-productive, socio-legal research partnership that traverses the fields of international law, conflict studies, humanitarian protection work and human rights policy, and brings together these communities of scholarship and practice with people with lived experience of conflict. It is funded by UK International Development. The second season is funded by UK International Development, while the first season was funded by the Dutch Research Council (NWO).

Katharine Fortin is an Associate Professor in human rights law and international humanitarian law at the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights, Utrecht University.

Florian Weigand is the Co-Director of the Centre on Armed Groups.

More than half the world’s population are living in settings where they are regularly exposed to violence, whether from armed actors, gangs, community defence forces or criminal groups. What do civilian communities do to protect themselves and others in these settings? And what can we learn from them about civilian protection? To look at these questions, Katharine and Florian are joined by Juan Masullo and Emily Paddon Rhoads, who are two of the editors of the new book ‘Civilian Protective Agency in Violent Settings: A Comparative Perspective’ (Oxford University Press). 

Shedding light on the dynamics in different countries, Emily and Juan also discuss the conceptual foundations of their work, reflect on the methodological and ethical challenges  of doing research in this field and share some of their novel theoretical insights.

Cited documents:

Krause, Jana, Masullo, Juan, Paddon Rhoads & Welsh, Jennifer, Civilian Protective Agency in Violent Settings: A Comparative Perspective, Oxford University Press, 2023

Guest Bios:

Emily Paddon Rhoads is Associate Professor of Political Science at Swathmore College. She is the author of Taking Sides in Peacekeeping: Impartiality and the Future of the United Nations (Oxford University Press, 2016) as well as several articles on civilian protection, peacekeeping and the United Nations. 

Juan Masullo is Assistant Professor at the Institute of Political Science, Leiden University. He is also co-editor of Qualitative and Multi-Method Research, the biannual publication of APSA’s Qualitative and Mult-Method Research Section and member of the Editorial Board of the International Studies Review. 

The Beyond Compliance Consortium is a co-productive, socio-legal research partnership that traverses the fields of international law, conflict studies, humanitarian protection work and human rights policy, and brings together these communities of scholarship and practice with people with lived experience of conflict. It is funded by UK International Development. The second season is funded by UK International Development, while the first season was funded by the Dutch Research Council (NWO).

Katharine Fortin is an Associate Professor in human rights law and international humanitarian law at the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights, Utrecht University.

Florian Weigand is the Co-Director of the Centre on Armed Groups.

In this episode of ‘Beyond Compliance: In Conversation’, Katharine and Florian talk to two experts from the International Committee of the Red Cross about armed groups, civilian agency and international law.

Almost 200 million people live in areas controlled or influenced by armed groups, finds the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). How do armed groups govern these areas? What does the relationship between civilians and armed groups look like? And what are the obligations of armed groups under international law? To tackle such questions, Katharine and Florian are joined by two experts from the ICRC in this  episode of ‘Beyond Compliance: In Conversation’. Matthew Bamber-Zryd is the advisor for armed groups located in the operations divisions at the HQ of the ICRC in Geneva. Tilman Rodenhäuser is a legal expert in the ICRC’s Legal Division, focusing on armed groups.

Cited documents:

ICRC engagement with armed groups in 2023, Humanitarian Law & Policy, ICRC, 10 October 2023, Matthew Zryd-Bamber

https://blogs.icrc.org/law-and-policy/2023/10/10/icrc-engagement-with-armed-groups-in-2023/

Speaker information

Dr Tilman Rodenhäuser is a thematic legal adviser at the International Committee of the Red Cross’ headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. Prior to joining the ICRC in 2016, Tilman has worked with the German Red Cross, DCAF, the NGO Geneva Call, and the United Nations, with missions in Africa and the Middle East.

Matthew Bamber-Zryd is the ICRC’s Adviser on Armed Groups, based in the Geneva headquarters. Prior to joining the ICRC, Matthew conducted research on armed groups in the Middle East and North Africa for a variety of governments and international organizations including the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), Swedish MFA, UN and International Alert.

The Beyond Compliance Consortium is a co-productive, socio-legal research partnership that traverses the fields of international law, conflict studies, humanitarian protection work and human rights policy, and brings together these communities of scholarship and practice with people with lived experience of conflict. It is funded by UK International Development. The second season is funded by UK International Development, while the first season was funded by the Dutch Research Council (NWO).

Katharine Fortin is an Associate Professor in human rights law and international humanitarian law at the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights, Utrecht University.

Florian Weigand is the Co-Director of the Centre on Armed Groups.