Accessibility statement

Indispensable and Expendable? The Protection and Rights of Locally Employed Staff in International Mission

When the Taliban took Kabul (2021), Afghan interpreters who had worked for the British and other armies were temporarily cast into the spotlight. However, the rights of local interpreters is a neglected and under-researched issue in 'normal' times, despite
locally engaged civilian staff's indispensable role for international missions. Moreover, the legal and policy frameworks to uphold their rights and protection are fragmented.

This project, which combines an incoming and outgoing secondment, brings together research and international advocacy and expertise in law and politics for two main purposes:

1) Build an evidence base of the structural gaps in the rights of local staff across different international missions (Afghanistan, Iraq, Mali to Bosnia-Herzegovina) and employing nations (UK, US, Canada, Germany)

2) Map the legal and policy frameworks that have successfully been leveraged to support local staff' s rights, from employment law, refugee law and international law for civilians in conflict.