The ICMM Center of Reference for Education on IHL and Ethics in cooperation with the Medical Services Directorate of the Swiss Armed Forces and the ZH Center for Military Medical Ethics at Zurich University convene their joint

12th Workshop on Military Medical Ethics
15-17 June 2023 | Hybrid Workshop

Medical Neutrality in Theory and Practice

 

During armed conflicts and other emergencies, medical services shall not be interfered with. This is the main tenet of what has been labelled “medical neutrality”. This principle is grounded in International Humanitarian Law as well as in Human Rights Law and it can be justified by ethical rationales such as the principle of Humanity and ordinary medical ethics. Health workers often understand medical neutrality as an obligation not to engage in anything else other than medical outcomes.

Our workshop shall provide an opportunity to discuss medical neutrality and the related concepts like impartiality from a variety of perspectives.

LoAC CircleMME Circle23rd Course on the Law of Armed Conflict (LoAC) &
11th Course on Military Medical Ethics (MME)

Spiez Plenary

Both courses will take place from 03–07 September 2023 at the Hotel Seaside in Spiez (Switzerland). In addition to the on-site courses in Spiez, both courses will also offer the opportunity for an online participation.

We look forward to welcoming participants from all over the world in Switzerland.

More detailed information

Plenary2 Spiez

We are glad to announce that the second volume of our book series on Military and Humanitarian Health Ethics is currently in production and should be available in book shops.

9783030804435The new book is entitled Health Care in Contexts of Risk, Uncertainty, and Hybridity and contributors discuss various ethical challenges that military and humanitarian health care personnel (HCP) face while working in adverse conditions. Contexts of armed conflict, hybrid wars or other forms of violence short of war, as well as natural disasters, all have in common that ordinary circumstances can no longer be taken for granted. This affects the practice of health care as well as its ethics.
The book offers a panoramic overview on various ethical challenges healthcare faces in extraordinary situations and provides new insights from practitioners’ as well as from academic scholars’ perspectives.

978 3 030 36319 2 The book with the title "Ethics of Medical Innovation, Experimentation, and Enhancement in Military and Humanitarian Contexts" is now available as PDF and epub via Springer (LINK). The printed version is due to be published in April and will then also be available via your local bookstore or online book stores.

This book (edited by D. Messelken and D. Winkler) discusses ethical questions surrounding research and innovation in military and humanitarian contexts. It focuses on human enhancement in the military. Recently, the availability of medical enhancement designed to make soldiers more capable of surviving during conflict, as well as enabling them to defeat their enemies, has emerged. Innovation and medical research in military and humanitarian contexts may thus yield positive effects, but simultaneously leads to a number of highly problematic ethical issues.

The work contains contributions on medical ethics that take into account the specific roles and obligations of military and humanitarian health care providers and the ethical problems they encounter. They cover different aspects of research and innovation such as vaccine development, medical enhancement, compassionate and experimental drug use, research and application of new technologies such as wearables, “Humanitarian innovation” to cope with scarce resources, Biometrics, big data, etc.The book is of interest and importance to researchers and policy makers involved with human enhancement, medical research, and innovation in military and humanitarian missions.

Did you know that we take part in a project that creates an online collection of scenarios for training and research in military medical ethics?

Messelken.2018 MME Scenario CollectionICMM RevueThe aim of this MME scenario collection is to provide deploying military medical personnel and those who organise trainging and education with a tool to better prepare for future missions. In order to do so, we collect and make available cases, experiences, reports, and scenarios in a neutral database. In order for the colletion to grow, we hope that we can convince those returning from missions to (anonymously or not) contribute their experiences and share it with others.

If you want to learn more, the International Review of the Armed Forces Medical Services has published an article that describes the MME Scenario Collection. You can read the article online via the following links:

Quicklinks