The Operationalization of Protection of Civilians Military Frameworks: Military and Legal Challenges

Military Briefings

ICRC

The armed conflicts in Ukraine and Israel/Palestine highlight the importance of the protection of civilians military frameworks. In 2016, NATO States members endorsed a NATO Policy for the Protection of Civilians (PoC), which defines a coherent, consistent, and integrated approach to the protection of civilians in NATO and NATO-led operations. This policy has been operationalized in an Action Plan, where activities are clearly defined, and its coherence has been ensured by the adoption, in 2018, of the Military Concept for the Protection of Civilians, defining a framework to identify and understand threats to the civilian population.

In a conversation with Marco Massimo Grandi, this Military Briefing will discuss NATO's PoC military frameworks and explore some of the current military and legal challenges connected to the operationalization of PoC efforts. The presentation will also look at humanitarian access challenges connected to PoC, with a particular focus on the military role in supporting said access within conflict settings.

About Marco Massimo Grandi

Marco Massimo Grandi is a former military officer with 20 years of service. He has covered a range of positions including aircrew, intelligence and training. He has been deployed multiple times to Afghanistan and the Mediterranean, while also supporting disaster response missions. During four years at NATO’s Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE), he supported the J9 Division within the Civil-Military Cooperation (CIMIC) Branch as an Operations and Plans staff officer, where he contributed to multiple strategic and operational level planning efforts, was selected as a NATO Evaluator, and supported the operationalization of the Alliance’s Protection of Civilians (PoC) policy.

In 2020, Marco Massimo Grandi joined the Dutch NGO PAX for Peace, where he was employed as a Military Advisor and focused on PoC training solutions for security actors, specializing in urban warfare. In this role, he supported multiple NATO entities with their operationalisation of the PoC concept, as well as contributing to various training efforts in support of national militaries including the Dutch, Ukrainian and Colombian Defence Forces, as well as the Iraqi security forces. Since August 2023, Marco Grandi has been employed with the United Nation’s World Food Program as the Training Administrator for the Humanitarian–Military Interaction (HMI) Team.

About the Military Briefings

Military Briefings are a unique series of events relating to military institutions and the law. They aim to improve our students’ knowledge of military actors and operations and build bridges between the military and civilian worlds.

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