public conscience

International rules and institutions are essential, but they cannot carry the whole weight of our morality. Treaties, political declarations such as the 2022 political declaration on explosive weapons in populated areas (EWIPA), and national commitments assume states will act in good faith, honouring not just the letter of the law but also its purpose and spirit. Yet the way wars are actually fought shows a persistent gap between what is promised on paper and what happens to civilians on the ground.

This section is for people who shape stories and decisions: students, journalists, filmmakers, artists, educators, community organisers, and emerging professionals in law, policy, and the military. It asks why international rules and declarations alone cannot end the bombing and shelling of populated areas, and how public conscience and culture can help close that gap.

The limits of “good faith”

From the UN Charter to the Geneva Conventions, and now political commitments like the 2022 EWIPA declaration, states are required or expected to act in good faith and to “respect and ensure respect” for international humanitarian law. On paper, this should mean that when the rules say civilians must be protected, governments organise decisions, targeting practices, and weapons choices around that obligation.

In practice, contemporary conflicts are marked by repeated attacks on cities, long-term damage to water and electricity systems, and large-scale displacement driven by explosive weapons whose effects in urban areas are well documented. Legal language is often used to defend these choices, even when civilians consistently make up the majority of recorded casualties. In 2024, Action on Armed Violence recorded the highest levels of civilian harm from explosive weapons since monitoring began in 2010, with civilians accounting for 95% of those killed and injured when explosive weapons were used in populated areas.

What is happening in Gaza since October 2023 is the most documented contemporary case. The use of explosive weapons in populated areas there has produced civilian harm at a scale and pace that exceeds any single recent conflict. Multiple authorities, including the International Court of Justice, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and a growing number of human rights organisations, have concluded or argued that the conduct meets the legal definition of genocide. When explosive weapons in populated areas are used not despite their effects on civilians but because of those effects, the framework of good-faith implementation of international humanitarian law no longer describes what is happening. The gap between the law's promise and civilian experience is no longer interpretive. It is structural.

This is not only a compliance problem. It is a culture problem. When bombing and shelling towns and cities becomes politically acceptable, “good faith” can be interpreted in ways that hollow out the purpose of the law.

Power, colonial legacies, and who interprets the rules

Many scholars and practitioners also highlight how power and history shape whose “good faith” counts. Critical traditions such as Third World Approaches to International Law argue that many rules were drafted in a colonial era by powerful states and that today’s legal and multilateral institutions still reflect those hierarchies.

In bodies such as the UN Security Council, a small group of permanent members hold veto power over decisions on war, peace, and accountability. That veto has repeatedly been used to block or weaken action on crises involving those same states or their allies, even when civilian harm is well documented. Relying only on “good faith” within this architecture risks reinforcing a colonial logic in which the states most able to shape and shield the rules are least exposed to their consequences, while communities in the Global South absorb the heaviest burden of contemporary conflicts, including from explosive weapons in populated areas.

From compliance architecture to conscience architecture

Over recent decades, the international community has built a compliance architecture around the use and effects of explosive weapons: treaties on particular weapon types, a political declaration on explosive weapons in populated areas, reviews of military policy, reporting mechanisms, and civilian‑harm monitoring. These tools matter, and campaigns to ban anti‑personnel landmines and cluster munitions show that sustained advocacy can shift the law.

But compliance architecture works best when it rests on something deeper: a shared sense that certain practices are simply off‑limits.

We call this conscience architecture. It is the set of norms, stories, instincts, and role models that shape what people in power see as acceptable long before they sign a treaty, run a news desk, approve an operation, or green‑light a film.

For explosive weapons in populated areas, conscience architecture means:

  1. Seeing the bombing and shelling of cities as a moral red line, not a routine tool of policy

  2. Understanding why wide‑area explosive weapons in dense urban environments almost inevitably make civilians the main victims

  3. Feeling accountable not only to legal reviewers and institutions, but also to public conscience and to the lives behind casualty statistics

If we wait to have these conversations until people are already embedded in institutions, they are working against strong incentives: careerism, loyalty, ratings, and the pressure to defend existing doctrine. This section is an invitation to start earlier.

Who this is for

  • Students and researchers. You will write the legal advice, policy memos, and academic work that frame how others understand explosive weapons in populated areas.

  • Journalists, editors, and media workers. You decide which images are shown, which words frame them, and how often civilians are centred in stories about war.

  • Filmmakers, artists, and storytellers. You create narratives that quietly teach audiences what is thinkable and what is not.

  • Educators and community organisers. You introduce new generations to ideas about security, justice, and human dignity.

  • Emerging professionals in law, policy, diplomacy, and the military. You will interpret “good faith” in real time: drafting rules of engagement, advising ministers, or designing doctrine.

WHY PUBLIC CONSCIENCE HAS ALWAYS MATTERED

History shows that international norms do not change through legal argument alone. The 1997 Mine Ban Treaty and the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions, two of the most significant achievements in humanitarian disarmament, were both driven by sustained public campaigns that changed what was politically tolerable before they changed what was legally required. The 2022 Political Declaration on EWIPA follows the same logic. Its implementation now depends on whether public attention is maintained, deepened, and extended into the cultures, institutions, and professional norms that shape how wars are fought and how they are understood. Public conscience is not a soft complement to serious policy work. It is part of the mechanism by which policy changes.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

You do not need to be a minister, general, or editor‑in‑chief to influence how explosive weapons are viewed and used. You can start shaping norms now:

  • Learn the landscape. Understand what explosive weapons in populated areas are, how they affect civilians, and what the 2022 political declaration on EWIPA is trying to change.

  • Interrogate language. Push back when “collateral damage” or “precision” are used to obscure predictable civilian devastation in cities. Ask what those terms mean for actual people.

  • Bring EWIPA into your medium. Whether you write scripts, articles, essays, or policy briefs, include the civilian experience of explosive weapons in populated areas, not only strategy or geopolitics.

  • Create spaces for reflection. Host screenings, panels, or reading groups that centre survivors, local voices, and data on civilian harm, and connect them to questions of responsibility and choice.

  • Carry a red line forward. As you move into positions of influence, treat the large‑scale use of explosive weapons in populated areas as a line not to cross, whatever the political, commercial, or institutional pressure of the moment.

Why this matters for explosive weapons

The effort to end the use of explosive weapons in populated areas depends on political and legal change, norm‑building, diplomatic work, and improved military practice. It also depends on something less visible: people who, years from now, will sit in rooms where decisions about cities and civilians are made, and who bring with them a reflexive discomfort with arguments that normalise urban bombardment.

International law gives us a framework. Public conscience gives that framework a heartbeat. If you are a student, creative, journalist, educator, organiser, or emerging practitioner drawn to this work, this page is an invitation to see yourself as part of that conscience architecture already now.

WHERE TO GO FROM HERE

If you are a student: read the On Campus page and download the Student Campaign Toolkit.If you work in film, journalism, or the arts: get in touch about the documentary partnership at uldduz@thecivilianagenda.org If you want to stay informed: sign up for the Project Nine Ten newsletter.