Counting the cost of war

Where did it all begin?

In a pretty unrelated conversation with my (future!) PhD supervisor. Several years ago, I attended a mandatory PhD seminar on International Norms and Ethics with Dr Richard Price. We were discussing the ethics of restitution and reparations in the aftermath of conflict, and we got into a conversation about what this might look like when thinking about harm caused to people, rather than things, in conflict and how we might think about ‘repairing’ the irreparable.  

I had always wanted to balance academic work with my driving passion for making a tangible difference in the world, and so I am lucky in many ways that I have spent my academic career thus far straddling the academic/policy and practice worlds. I knew a bit about the issue of civilian harm compensation due to time spent researching and working on (and in) conflict zones and humanitarian emergencies over the previous years. Western forces, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan, were deeply engaged in providing condolence payments to civilians harmed during their operations. Yet there were (and are) considerable issues, not least that these payments for the death of someone’s loved one, often ranged from $100 at the low end to a ‘capped’ amount at $2500. The price of a precious life reduced to so little infuriated me. My research was born out of that fury, and I felt we could surely do this better—not only should militaries be protecting people from harm more effectively, but they desperately need to do better when despite best efforts to protect civilians, bad things happen. Meeting the needs of civilians in the aftermath of civilian harm incidents is not just normatively and ethically vital, it is strategically necessary to achieve military objectives.  

What’s the big idea?

When someone we love is injured or dies, we have certain expectations. A funeral, a burial, care and compassion from your community, whatever it is. Yet, in contexts of conflict, particularly when civilians have been killed as a result of military operations, these expectations are often denied to survivors, family members, and communities. Yet these are important moments for militaries. Imagine how you would feel in these circumstances. Devastating sadness, anger, hurt. You may feel helpless, or have an urge to retaliate, or your views about military forces may harden because of what’s happened. These moments are crucial in a counterinsurgency in particular. When militaries are trying to win the hearts and minds of the population, having caused someone innocent’s death runs contrary to those goals. The aftermath of the incident provides the last opportunity to quell those heightening tensions - to regain or retain legitimacy. Militaries often use compensation payments to try to smooth the waters and express contrition. However, current practice is uneven, payment levels range from $100 to 2,500, and the practices by which they are disbursed are often demeaning or offensive to civilians. In effect, despite billions of dollars spent in this way over the last twenty years of counterinsurgency warfare, often these payments have the opposite of the intended effect—inflaming tensions, making survivors and their families more upset and offended. Yet, coalition forces have never evaluated whether these payments ‘work’. That’s what I do.  

What’s the big question?

How can militaries better protect civilians in conflict and atone for their actions when they cause harm to civilians?

What’s the answer?

The answer is incredibly simple: in order to effectively atone for their actions in the aftermath of a civilian harm incident, militaries post-harm efforts, including compensation, must meet the normative (values and ethics), procedural (alignment with existing laws and rules), and performance-based (proper and effective use of power) expectations affected civilians have of legitimate actors. 

What policy changes would you like to see in your area of expertise?  

How I work on this issue and advocate for positive change in policy is by using human-centric design. I have worked extensively with communities affected by civilian harm incidents to understand what they need and expect in the aftermath of these incidents. Alongside these communities, I advocate for policy change that reflects this, pushing militaries to recognize that meeting the needs and expectations of civilians they’ve harmed is in their own strategic interests. 

How did your academic research lead to your current career in policy? 

In many ways. Most notably, I was hired by the Canadian Department of National Defence while working on my PhD based on my academic research at that time. That was a particularly pivotal applied research role that led to many others, including opportunities at Yale, Oxford, Lumos, Transparency International, RAND, and the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Drones and Modern Conflict. 

What motivated you to pursue a career in policy? 

I balance my academic and policy work because I feel passionately about using rigorous evidence to make a difference in the world. My academic research directly informs the ways in which I do policy work and how I advocate for change. 

Who inspired you?

My grandparents are really the heart of my inspiration. They grew up with very little, met each other in primary school (my grandma was NOT a big fan of my grandad at the time), and eventually got married and lived pretty normal Canadian lives...until they retired. My grandad always had a love of adventure, and my grandma loved my grandad, and jumped in with two feet. Since their retirement to today, they’ve explored over 125 countries, often in incredibly non-traditional ways. They’ve paddled the Nile, the Zambezi, and the Nahanni – they’ve nearly died in jungles, been thrown in post-Soviet prisons, and had sawed-off shotguns to their heads! You name it; they’ve probably done it. During their adventures, they soaked up every bit of knowledge and culture they could, often asking random strangers to recount their entire life stories, much to my teenage embarrassment! They inspired in me a love of people, travel, a deep passion for learning about the world, finding beauty in unexpected places and doing what I can to improve our world for future generations.  

 What should we be reading? 

Azmat Khan’s Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting on civilian harm in Iraq, Syria - and more recently, Afghanistan - has been ground-breaking for getting to grips with how Western militaries think about civilian harm compensation. Liesbeth Zegveld has been the leading lawyer undertaking civilian harm compensation cases in Europe. Elizabeth Dauphinee’s incredible “The Ethics of Researching War: Looking for Bosnia” was quite formative for me in terms of how to go about telling the stories of survivors of conflict ethically and developing my own research and writing style, as was Annick T.R. Wibben’s fantastic work on feminist methods, ethics, and politics. 

Who or what gives you hope? 

 Lots of things! The passion with which people all over the world have come together to address these issues is particularly inspiring. But in terms of work, I have to say, the passion, resilience, and indomitable spirit survivors bring to this is something to behold. Witnessing the ways in which survivors like Basim Razzo continue to advocate for their communities, improve lives, and talk about the power of forgiveness is truly inspiring. Outside of work, I am most inspired when I am in the mountains! 

Dr Kaleigh S Heard is Associate Lecturer and Deputy Director of the MA in Human Rights at UCL.