Tailoring Protection of Civilians to State Capacity

The 2016 UN Agenda for Humanity states that minimizing human suffering and protecting civilians requires strengthening compliance with international law. In response to this call, this policy brief offers a complementary vision of protection of civilians (PoC) as a spectrum of possibilities that includes local self-protection efforts, legal strategies, and the practice of judicial and quasi-judicial bodies. The approach is illustrated by the life-cycle of the protection measures ordered for the Colombian Kankuamo by the Inter-American human rights system.