Claude Bruderlein is Adjunct Lecturer on Global Health at the Harvard School of Public Health and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and Senior Researcher at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. He currently serves as Strategic Advisor to the President of the ICRC. Additionally, he is a Senior Researcher at the Centre of Competence on Humanitarian Negotiation (CCHN), a Centre he founded in 2016 with the ICRC, MSF, UNHCR, WFP, and the HD Centre. He has previously served as Special Adviser to the UN Secretary General on humanitarian affairs and independent expert to the UN Security Council on the humanitarian impact of sanctions in Sudan, Burundi, and Sierra Leone. In addition, he led efforts to secure access in Afghanistan and North Korea and was a field delegate in Iran, Israel and the Occupied Territories, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Yemen. His work has focused on the access to, and protection of populations affected by conflict and natural disasters, the development of humanitarian law, the promotion of human security strategies, as well as the role of information technologies in emergency response.
For over 150 years, humanitarian organizations have responded to natural disasters and conflicts within the confines of the nation-state. Their mandate to provide life-saving assistance to affected populations in times of crisis have been incorporated into international conventions which assert the responsibility of governments to respond, with humanitarian support. With the integration of human rights law into humanitarian discourse in the early 1990s, humanitarian professionals have become influential commentators of government policies seeking the respect of international norms applicable to all despite crises that do not confirm to the norm of respecting individual human rights and dignities. In this context, and in light of new migration flows transforming humanitarian actors, both local and international, potential mediators along migratory routes, Mr. Claude Bruderlein will discuss the evolving role of humanitarians in finding durable and systemic solutions to migratory pressures for the years to come.