Dr David Rodin will appear on the BBC World Service Programme 'The Forum' on Sunday 20 May, as part of a panel of experts discussing the future of war.

On 9 May, ELAC Senior Research Fellow, Hugo Slim, chaired a seminar with Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) to discuss the significant ethical issues arising from MSF's important new book, Humanitarian Negotiations Revealed, edited by Claire Magone, Michael Neuman and Fabrice Weissman.

The principle of the responsibility to protect (R2P), endorsed by heads of states and governments, has developed in recent years to help the international community respond to mass atrocity crimes and build the political will to act.

More information about the project is available on our website here.

As the former UN Secretary General attempts to resolve the ongoing conflict in Syria with the 'Annan Peace Plan', Jennifer Welsh reflects on his past achievements in Kenya in 2007 and considers that many of the factors that made this mediation a success are absent in Syria.

Dr David Rodin appeared as a witness commentator on the BBC Radio 4 programme 'The Moral Maze' on Weds 7 March 2012 discussing 'Iran and the Bomb'.

The other witnesses were Douglas Murray, Henry Jackson Society; Dr Mehrdad Khonsari, Sen Res. Consultant at Centre for Arab and Iranian Studies, London/former Iranian diplomat and Prof Mike Clark, Director of RUSI. The regular panellists are Michael Portillo, Matthew Taylor, Clifford Longley and Melanie Phillips, and the programme is chaired by chaired by Michael Buerk, see the BBC website here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01cwrw8#synopsis

You can listen to the programme again here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b01cwrw8

Jennifer Welsh writes on the differences in the UN reaction to the current crisis in Syria to that seen in response to the uprising in Libya in 2011. In a feature for OpenCanada (The Canadian International Council) she compares the consensus to end the violence in Libya with the recent ' tension and discord' in the UN Security Council that saw Russia and China using their veto to block a resolution aimed at ending the conflict peacefully.

Dr David Rodin speaks at 'Hub Davos' at the recent World Economic Forum meeting on the emerging need for fundamental 'global ethics' to address pressing international problems such as conflict, climate change and financial crisis.

He also explains how ELAC works with the UK and US military on professional ethics issues, and the challenges involved in shifting their traditional values systems.

You can see the full interview on Youtube here.

Dr Rodin is a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, see the previous ELAC news item. You can read more about the YGL programme here.

ELAC visiting fellow Hugo Slim has published a volume of essays in Kindle format. These ten essays on humanitarian action address a range of ethical and operational issues that have preoccupied humanitarian agencies in recent years. They include: essays on humanitarian values; humanitarian dilemmas; NGO legitimacy; hostile perceptions of humanitarian agencies; civil-military relations; marketing humanitarian ideals; humanitarianism and the holocaust, humanitarian innovation, and the evolution of humanitarian action.

Hugo Slim discusses the reasons why international action comes late in many cases of humanitarian disaster in his recent article for the Guardian online: 'Why east Africa's famine warning was not heeded'.

Conference papers from the first ELAC Annual Workshop on Killing in War have been published as a symposium in the latest edition of Ethics, the world's leading journal of moral philosophy.

You can access the symposium here.

Jennifer Welsh comments on the recent controversial monitoring mission in Syria by the Arab League, and questions whether regional or international organisations are best placed to help find solutions to conflict. The full article can be read here.

Dr Serena Sharma is guest editor for a special edition of the journal Global Responsibility to Protect (Vol 3 No. 4, Dec 2011), looking back on the development of RtoP over the last decade, with contributions from former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Francis M. Deng (UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide), Edward C. Luck (UN Advisor on RtoP) and others. You can access the full text from: www.ingentaconnect.com/content/mnp/gr2p.

Professor Jennifer Welsh and Dr Serena Sharma hosted a meeting of influential policy makers, academics and NGOs in Oxford on 12 December 2011, to discuss the preventive dimension of the responsibility to protect.

Dr Hugo Slim writes on the changing perception and effectiveness of international NGOs, as their global reach and budgets have grown in recent times. Despite their expertise in influencing the media, he argues that they can never match the aid of government and business, and should not present themselves as miracle workers, instead framing themselves as representatives of the citizens in need. You can read the full article here.

Dr Hugo Slim was interviewed for the Today programme for a feature on humanitarian aid, linked to the 40th anniversary of Medecins Sans Frontieres.

The Defence Academy of the UK and ELAC will co-host a workshop ‘To consider the Ethical Component of Military Capability’ on 3 November at the Royal College of Defence Studies.

The conference aimed to help protect and preserve the opportunities offered by the development of cyberspace. One component of this was international security - how can problems between states be prevented and managed? Dr David Rodin attended the conference and participated in this thematic area. You can view the full details of the conference here.