Safe areas for the protection of civilians. An overview of existing research and scholarship

Abstract

Safe areas for the protection of civilians remain a possible instrument in the foreign policy-making toolbox. Lately, this was highlighted by calls for a safe area in Syria by German chancellor Angela Merkel and defence minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer. Yet, the subsequent debates demonstrated that many policy-makers, pundits and scholars lack a detailed knowledge about the concept. They further showed that various different perspectives on the idea of safe areas exist. This article therefore provides a comprehensive and inclusive account of the academic engagement with the topic of safe areas. It demonstrates that some arguments focus on the (geo)political dynamics of safe areas, whereas others emphasise the potential to protect civilians. It further presents the legal codification of consent-based safe areas in the Geneva Conventions as well as debates about the legality of enforced, post-Cold War safe area cases. Regarding the research on displacement and safe areas, the majority tends to focus on the containment effects, although some highlight the capacity of safe areas as an alternative to flight. Overall, however, the article concludes that recent and conceptual academic engagement with safe areas remains rare and that a safe area perspective is missing in relevant current empirical cases. More research that contributes to the conceptual development of safe areas or to the assessment of current empirical examples, for instance in South Sudan, is necessary.