Murders of journalists in areas of conflict, almost all of which have been uninvestigated, unsolved and unpunished, have shown the inadequacy of international humanitarian law (IHL) designed to protect people, such as media workers, who are not participating in hostilities.
So, against a background of continuing attacks on journalists, is there anything that can be done to protect them?
In exploring the problem, Anne Bennett, blogging on the Advanced Training Program on Humanitarian Action (ATHA) website, points out that there is “considerable divergence on the best way to do so.”
She mentions one initiative in 2006, the Draft International Covenant for the Protection of Journalists, which included a provision for a PRESS emblem.
It recognised the vital role of journalists in armed conflict and underlined the core principle that press freedom is essential to ensure the right of the public to information.
She writes: “If ratified, it would provide for considerably broader applicable scope than IHL, namely including violence such as riots and demonstrations, or actions carried out by criminal networks outside of armed conflict.”
But she also acknowledges that a PRESS emblem “raises considerable concerns, not just for journalists who would be visibly easier to target, but for their sources as well.”
Bennett, a senior fellow at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, writes: “Potentially open to abuse, the scheme raises unanswered questions around accreditation and the status of citizen journalism.”
More surprising, however, is her view that “there is little, if any, clamour among news executives or reporters for strengthening statutory protection in conflict.”
She points to a recent poll by the International News Safety Institute (INSI), in which “there is not a single mention of the protection of journalists under IHL” and argues:
“In other words, for journalists on the front lines, and the editors that decide to send them there, the gap between standards and implementation is so wide as to render IHL seemingly beyond consideration.”
However, she notes that the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) “plays a critical role in publicising attacks on the media and in pushing for concrete steps to hold member states accountable to ensure impartial and effective prosecution of cases of violence against journalists.”
She also refers to Press Uncuffed, which raises awareness about the problem and calls for the release of journalists held for covering stories in the public interest.
She might also have mentioned the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders and the Vienna-based International Press Institute (IPI), both of which report on attacks on journalists and threats to press freedom. I happen to think INSI does great work too.
But Bennett is eager for journalists to be “well versed in IHL” in order “to inform the local population and state and non-state actors of their rights and obligations, as well as to advocate for their own protection, especially in situations where battle lines are blurred.”
She concedes that journalists, in attempting to tell the truth, sometimes do things humanitarians cannot do, such as travelling with insurgent groups or slipping across a border, and writes: “Accountability reporting and investigative journalism are intrinsically uncooperative with authority.”
Therefore, she writes: “New rules for the protection of journalists could all too easily restrain the media’s ability to gather information confidentially, to protect its sources and to move and operate freely; similarly, new security measures for humanitarian actors could lead to restrictions in mobility, or access to vulnerable populations and communities.”
And she concludes:
“What’s needed in most cases is not new ‘fortified’ protection, but better enforcement and accountability on the one hand, and improved coordination and operational protocols for media and humanitarian actors on the other..
We can learn from the inadequate response to the attacks on journalists that however strong the outcry, real change is likely to come from a combination of political pressure at the international level, backed by strong industry advocacy, and practical changes to the way humanitarian and media organisations operate.
This means being able to coordinate and share information in real time so as to keep their staff safe from attack for simply doing their jobs.”
Bennett’s piece is full of insight. But it also left me wondering whether the problem is intractable.
Source: ATHA.se
