Abstract

Abstract The 2018 United Nations Security Council Resolution 2417 makes a significant contribution to the growing normative framework that is considering famines as subjects of global peace and security. The Resolution’s limits and blind spots in connection with non-state armed groups, the use of human shields, and the politics of humanitarian intervention are raised and discussed in this essay. The current armed conflict and risk of famine in Ethiopia is used an example for these discussions.

Highlights

  • By ‘[r]ecognising the need to break the vicious cycle between armed conflict and food insecurity’, the 2018 United Nations Security Council Resolution 24171 makes a strong contribution to the growing normative framework that is putting starvation, famine, and hunger into the realm of

  • The current humanitarian catastrophe in Tigray, Ethiopia, a result of the political crisis that escalated to armed conflict in November 2020, according to the UN, has put around 400,000 people in famine conditions while 1.8 million people are at the brink of famine.[4]

  • Famines and famine-like situations we have seen over the past decade, including the current situation in Ethiopia, represent a watershed for the significant achievements made over the past couple of decades in eradicating famine catastrophes

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Summary

Introduction

By ‘[r]ecognising the need to break the vicious cycle between armed conflict and food insecurity’, the 2018 United Nations Security Council Resolution 24171 makes a strong contribution to the growing normative framework that is putting (mass) starvation, famine, and hunger into the realm of (international). Identifying the Tigray/ Ethiopia situation as the first case to test the preventive provisions of the Resolution (2417), grc and wpf called for the Security Council to take measures, including assigning a UN focal point for the Resolution, urging of parties to the conflict to respect international human rights and humanitarian laws, and establishing an independent and impartial investigation mission. Armed conflicts in these countries have assumed the leading role in causing famine conditions and hindering famine response operations.[8] in 2019, of all 135 million people globally in a situation of acute food crisis (ipc level 3) or worse, 77 million are in conflict-affected areas (in 22 countries, 21 of which are in the Middle East and Africa).[9] In the absence of other significant factors (like drought), the current situation in Tigray, Ethiopia, is clear testimony of how certain forms of armed conflicts, non-international armed conflicts wherein civilians are highly vulnerable, are strongly linked to famine. As a mechanism for accountability, the Resolution urges states to undertake independent investigation, overlooking how non-state armed groups affect or deter such investigation in armed conflict contexts

Civilians and Civilian Infrastructure as Human Shields
The Politics of Humanitarian Access
Conclusion
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