October 10, 2019: CODE PAKISTAN assisted the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in organizing a two-day workshop aimed at sensitizing Members of the Provincial Assembly (MPAs) of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province on Pakistan’s domestic obligations under International Humanitarian Law (IHL). The Head of Sub-delegation of ICRC Mr. Patrick Huser welcomed the MPAs to the session and emphasized the importance of legal knowledge, especially of IHL, in their decisionmaking process as MPAs. The two-day event was divided into six separate sessions in which presentations were given by Mr. Dilawar Khan from CODE PAKISTAN and Mr. Ali Sultan from the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) to educate the participants on the importance and need for the domestic implementation of IHL in Pakistan. The sessions were on the Introduction to International Public Law and International Humanitarian Law, the Interplay between IHL and International Human Rights Law, the Role of Parliamentarians in this scope, Domestic Implementation of IHL and Treaty Ratification, Regional Implementation of IHL, and IHL in Practice. The two-day workshop ended with an award ceremony in which the MPAs expressed their appreciation of the ICRC and the presenters for conducting a much-needed capacity building exercise on a subject that they acknowledged they had a very limited understanding of but which was unanimously recognized as being very relevant and essential to their role as policymakers. The MPAs were of the view that training workshops for them on international law were an essential requirement of their work as domestic legislators.
CODE PAKISTAN has been providing assistance to ICRC in the past as well. CODE PAKISTAN has assisted the ICRC in conducting year-long research on addressing overcrowding in prisons by reducing pre-conviction detention. Founder CODE PAKISTAN, Mr. Dilawar Khan is on the panel of the ICRC as an expert on IHL and is regularly invited to the ICRC events for giving presentations on subjects related to his area of expertise.