RFC-027: IHL-Aligned Governance — Protected Persons and Humanitarian Context — 9. Context Activation Protocol

AIGP Specification › RFC-027: IHL-Aligned Governance — Protected Persons and Humanitarian Context › 9. Context Activation Protocol

← 8. References · Section index · 10. Context Phases and Transitions →

9. Context Activation Protocol

9.1 Authority to Declare

The humanitarian_context declaration is a privileged operation — not all actors may legitimately invoke IHL protections.

Operator Status	May Declare?	Validation
ICRC / Red Cross/Crescent	Yes	Self-declaratory (mandate under Geneva Conventions)
UN agencies (UNHCR, OCHA, WHO)	Yes	UN mandate verification
Humanitarian NGOs (MSF, WFP)	Yes	Registration with OCHA coordination mechanism
State party to conflict	Limited	Only for own protected persons obligations (POW treatment, civilian administration)
Commercial operator in conflict zone	No self-declaration	Must be endorsed by a recognized humanitarian authority
Military/defense	No	Military AI governed by LOAC separately; cannot claim humanitarian protections for offensive systems

9.2 Context Authority Service

A governance server MAY implement a Context Authority endpoint that validates humanitarian context declarations:

POST /api/v1/context/validate
{
  "humanitarian_context": { ... },
  "declaring_authority_credentials": { ... }
}

→ { "valid": true, "context_id": "ctx-xxx", "expires": "2026-12-31T00:00:00Z" }

This prevents bad actors from declaring false humanitarian contexts to trigger different governance paths.

9.3 Abuse Prevention

• Context declarations are audited — every activation/deactivation is recorded with immutable evidence chain
• False declaration of humanitarian context for commercial advantage is flagged as a governance violation
• The governance server may require periodic re-validation (contexts expire and must be renewed)

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← 8. References · Section index · 10. Context Phases and Transitions →