Legal CPD Training: Navigating conflict risk: Integrating International Humanitarian Law into Heightened Human Rights Due Diligence
Description
The Australian Red Cross International Humanitarian Law (IHL) team is pleased to present the second of two continuing professional development seminars on international humanitarian law being offered in 2026 to the Australian legal profession.
Navigating conflict risk: Integrating International Humanitarian Law into Heightened Human Rights Due Diligence
As armed conflicts become more numerous, complex, and interconnected, legal practitioners are increasingly advising clients whose operations, supply chains, investments, technologies or business relationships are linked to conflict-affected and high-risk areas. Businesses operating in these environments face a range of legal, operational and reputational risks, and are increasingly expected to consider how conflict may affect, or be affected by, their activities and decision-making.
This session introduces Navigating Conflict Risks: Integrating International Humanitarian Law into Heightened Human Rights Due Diligence, a practical guidance document developed by Australian Red Cross and RMIT University to help businesses identify, assess and address conflict-related risks through an international humanitarian law (IHL)-informed approach to heightened human rights due diligence. The guidance seeks to bridge the gap between legal principles and practical implementation by providing businesses with a framework to better understand how IHL may be relevant to their operations, supply chains and business relationships in conflict-affected and high-risk areas. While the guidance is not intended to provide legal advice, it highlights issues that businesses should consider and may assist legal practitioners to identify areas where clients require tailored legal advice.
This session will highlight the IHL-related aspects of heightened human rights due diligence and equip lawyers advising businesses operating in conflict-affected or high-risk areas with the knowledge and tools to support responsible business conduct and navigate relevant legal risks and obligations.
Australian Red Cross is a member of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement (the Movement): a neutral, impartial and independent humanitarian network that operates worldwide to alleviate suffering. The Movement has a unique mandate under the Geneva Conventions of August 1949 and their Additional Protocols (to which Australia is a state party), and the Statutes, to support governments, armed actors and populations in times of armed conflict. National Societies, like Australian Red Cross, specifically have a mandate to work with their governments as auxiliary to the public authorities in their humanitarian tasks, including in times of armed conflict, and to disseminate, and promote respect for, IHL.
Presenters
Claire Cayzer is a Legal Adviser in the IHL team at Australian Red Cross. Claire's qualifications include a Master of Laws in International law and a Juris Doctor. She was admitted in the ACT Supreme Court and has more than 15 years’ experience in public international law.
Dr Jonathan Kolieb is Director of RMIT's Business and Human Rights Centre, and Associate Professor in Law at the School of Law, RMIT University. Jonathan’s research and teaching interests focus on global governance issues, including current projects on international conflict resolution, business and human rights, and the accountability of transnational corporations under international humanitarian law.
* As this is a legal session delivered by qualified legal experts, practitioners, at their own discretion, may be able to count this session to their CPD where relevant to their immediate or long-term needs in relation to their professional development and to the practice of law (eg. Qld)/ where it extends the solicitor’s knowledge and skills in areas that are relevant to the solicitor’s practice needs or professional development (eg. NSW) or similar in other states as per the Law Society CPD Guidelines.
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