My name is David Winkler,
and I'm the Chairman of the ICMM,
Center of Reference for Education on International Humanitarian Law and Ethics.
I would like to present you some information on the work of our Center,
and the ICMM's activities in the field of LOAC,
the Law of Armed Conflict and Military Medical Ethics.
Why is the ICMM offering training in LOAC,
the Law of Armed Conflict?
The international committee on military medicine has been founded in
1921 under the impressions of the First World War's challenges,
new challenges in military medics scene.
Since its foundation, the ICMM has been encouraging
the application and also
the teaching activities in the field of international humanitarian law.
The ICMM has therefore established training courses for
international humanitarian law and later on also for military medical ethics.
Only if the basis of
international humanitarian law and the law of armed conflicts are well understood,
these guidelines and the aims of these guidelines can be
instrumented and even in times of war a minimum of humanity can be maintained.
Why is the ICMM also offering training in military medical ethics?
With growing complexity of medicine,
ethical training has become a standard in civil medical environments.
The ethical challenges in the military are
not smaller but even more complex than in a civil environment,
such as, by the problems caused by hierarchies and the military orders.
In addition to this,
the law of armed conflict clearly stipulates that
military persons should act in accordance with medical ethics.
Based on this, the ICMM has established training courses for military medical ethics.
Against this background, the ICMM has also contributed to the creation
of the ethical principles of health care in
times of armed conflict and other emergencies.
What are current military medical ethical challenges?
Many military medical ethical challenges are caused by shortages of resources.
These kind of challenges wouldn't be here if resources would be abundant,
which is, of course,
not possible to have abundant resources,
particularly not in the case of war or humanitarian catastrophes.
In modern conflicts hybrid or asymmetric wars we
often face also ethical dilemmas due to different levels of care.
Furthermore, the modern multinational medical teams
in many missions also face medical dilemmas which are
beyond the primary military medical problem and extend
to general medical ethical problems such as end-of-life issues.
The ICMM offers an annual workshop on military medical ethic in Switzerland.
Let's tell you what is the focus of these workshops.
These workshops focus on actual military medical ethical issues.
One of the recent workshop has been focused on
the issues of the humanitarian response to the Ebola catastrophe.
Another workshop has addressed issues of medical age estimation of
potentially minors such as now often seen due to the problems associated with migration.
And the most recent workshop has addressed issues,
military medical issues of hybrid warfare.
At the Lilienberg workshop,
we have a broad audience and a wide range of participants with either a strong legal,
ethical or/and medical background what leads to vivid and interesting discussions.
The results of this annual workshops are being published and publicly
made available so that the community can benefit from these discussions in Switzerland.
What are the benefits of the ICMM courses on military medical ethics,
and the ICMM workshops on military medical ethics?
Unsolved ethical dilemmas may cause stress and
psychological harm to the military medical personnel exposed to the dilemma.
Furthermore, in times of
globalized communication ethical misbehavior
may rapidly endanger the success of an entire mission.
Sound training in both international humanitarian law, as well as,
military medical ethics is therefore
desirable for medical personnel of all military levels.