In December of 2023, the United States Department of Defense released its detailed Instruction on Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response (CHMR DoD-I), as stipulated by Section 936 of the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act. The CHMR DoD-I formalizes and institutionalizes the recommendations of the earlier 2022 DoD Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Action Plan (CHMR DoD-AP).

In this exploratory discussion, Helen Kinsella, University of Minnesota, seeks to identify the stakes of the 2022 and 2023 DoD guidance by drawing out the implications for conceptualizing CHMR as a strategic and moral military imperative and assessing the preeminent role of the United States. She charts the introduction of the concept of CHMR, its recent formulation in policy and guidance documents from the Biden administration, and critically assesses its potential; namely, the work it does, in whose service, and to what ends.  

If, as its proponents claim, it is a manifestation of the U.S. understanding of a rules-based order, it can and should be analyzed for the “set[s] of material, ideational, and normative interests congealed into institutions and practices,” some of which bear the racialized and gendered histories of its conceptualization thus far, and result in a still troubling understanding of democratic accountability for and engagement  with civilian casualties and civilian harm

About the Speaker
Helen M. Kinsella is a Political Science and Law Professor at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. She holds affiliate faculty positions in the Department of Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies, the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs, the Human Rights Center at the Law School, and the Interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Global Change.

Host
Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies 

Cosponsors
Cornell Law School 
Department of Government
Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies