Henrique Garbino

Promoting restraint among non-state armed groups often requires more than legal appeals—it demands engagement strategies that resonate with the groups’ own goals and concerns. This post outlines five pragmatic approaches to operationalize non-humanitarian drivers of restraint, including engaging legitimacy-givers, facilitating peer learning, highlighting long-term consequences, offering practical training, and supporting internal political education. While some …

Pragmatic engagement: advancing non-humanitarian drivers of restraint (part II) Read More »

Humanitarian diplomacy typically relies on principled engagement to promote compliance with International Humanitarian Law. Yet, many non-state armed groups operate outside formal legal frameworks and lack incentives to align with them. This post argues for a more pragmatic approach: engaging armed groups through the drivers that already resonate with their operational logic. Drawing on concrete …

Pragmatic engagement: advancing non-humanitarian drivers of restraint (part I) Read More »

Why are some non-state armed groups more violent than others? Why do some groups resort to inhumane means and methods of war while others restrain from doing so? In trying to answer these questions, a growing number of scholars and practitioners have focused on the drivers of restraint behaviour. However, defining and measuring restraint can …

Measuring restraint against humanitarian norms: the case of landmines and similar explosive devices Read More »