Legal Working Group meeting in Budapest
Szöveg: LtCol Zoltán Hegedüs / LtCol Tímea Samu | 2014. február 14. 9:00The Law of Armed Conflict NATO Training Group Task Group (LOAC NTG TG) held its meeting in the conference room of Hotel Hadik in Budapest between 21-24 January 2014. The event was organized and hosted by the Legal Department of Hungarian Ministry of Defence .
The LOAC NTG TG was established in 2008 with the purpose to update the „STANAG 2449 Ed1 (2004), Training In The Law of Armed Conflict" as it was already due for revision. The working group produced the „A TrainP-2 Training in the Armed Conflict Edition A Version 1" document, which was promulgated by the NATO Standardization Agency in March 2013 as „STANAG 2449". Hungary has participated in the working group from the beginning, and by developing the basis of the instruction text and the detailed explanations of the „new STANAG" and by elaborating a standardized, easy-to-handle template for the instruction slides gave initially a significant contribution to the LOAC NTG TG.
The members of the conference
The new version of the „STANAG 2449" is a recommendation to the Nations that can be used to develop their own military training and education system. The Nations may decide whether to translate or to use the English text of the STANAG. The content of the training material is not binding neither to the Nations nor to the NATO, and because of the different national interpretations of LOAC it can not be considered as official legal interpretation of either the nations or of the NATO.
The next task and current challenge of the Task Group has been to prepare the training STANAG for Rules of Engagement/Escalation of Force Training (ROE STANAG).
After the ROE STANAG will have been developed the NATO members will be able to implement it – as a whole or partially – into their national military training program to ensure the appropriate knowledge of the soldiers concerning to the Rules of Engagement.
The ROE STANAG is based on the Military Committee’s MC 362/1. document, therefore the „NATO ROE" expression is used in the complete material.
The draft includes the introduction to NATO ROE, the relationship between Self-Defence and NATO ROE, the key MC 362/1. terminology for the use of force, the developing ROE within NATO, and the use of NATO ROE in different operations, consequently it attempts to cover all aspects of the issue.
The form of the ROE STANAG will be similar to „STANAG 2449" since it will also use the method of template Power Point slides as recommendation and the Nations can easily modulate these slides to their national requirements. In order to facilitate the development of the training in ROE through a practical exercise, the Joint Warfare Centre in Norway has prepared a scenario package to the draft.
The Legal Office of ACT Staff Element Europe has been responsible for the coordination of the LOAC NTG TG’s activity from the beginning.
Mr. Sherrod Lewis Bumgardner, Legal Advisor of ACT SEE chaired the meeting in Budapest at which legal and operational experts of Austria, Canada, Finland, France, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Sweden, Turkey, United Kingdom and United States of America participated. From the Hungarian MOD , LtCol Zoltán Hegedüs, LtCol Tímea Samu and Mr. Ádám Kereki represented the Hungarian MoD.
The long list of the participating Nations indicates that the Task Group is opened to the PfP and other Partnerships Nations, too. However the non-NATO members are not parties to the official approval of the document and it is not binding to them at all, they can decide whether they wish to apply it or not. However their presence on the meetings, and the later awareness and use of the document can be advantageous for the mutual cooperation if the non-NATO members know the training of their NATO counterparts.
The participants of meeting in Budapest developed the material of the draft which is expected to be finalized in March.
The meeting was held in the Hotel Hadik. All participants were more than satisfied with the Hotel’s services and with the hosting in general. Participants also enjoyed the unofficial evening programs that were organized by the MoD Legal Department.
