Remarks by Nils Melzer

Gender and Human Shielding

“…Instead, she came to exemplify the increasingly racialized voluntary human shield literally and figuratively embodied in "the concrete example of a woman who shielded two fighters with her billowing robe." 34 Finally, Abu Jasir's wounding also draws attention to one of the more recent responses to human shielding that arises from the authority to impute intent; namely, once intent is determined it provides the military forces the legal license to "counter-target." The injuries or deaths of human shields are accordingly no longer interpreted as the fault of the attacking forces, but of the shields or the forces they defend: "the blood is on ... [their] hands."…”

“…Indeed, "the very fact that voluntary human shields are in practice considered to pose a legal-rather than a physical-obstacle to military operations," not only reveals the reach of this form of calculative logic and bounds its proposed solutions, but specifically as Banu Bargu brilliantly demonstrates, mitigates against recognizing voluntary human shielding as a "new form of agency." 42 This agency, contra to the merely physical or corporeal sense of an obstacle, literally and figuratively embodies a "specifically political meaning and value of human life," over and against the horror and dehumanization of conflict and the differential values placed upon life itself. 43 In Abu Jasir's case, her action was initiated on behalf of a chosen solidarity and through a decision to heed a call.…”