§184 — Title 10 Armed Forces | U.S. Code

Summary

The Secretary of Defense must run a Civilian Protection Center of Excellence. It will be the main office for issues about civilian deaths, injuries, and other harm caused by U.S. military operations. The Center must build and share knowledge, practices, and tools to prevent, reduce, and respond to civilian harm. The Center will set up standard reporting and data systems; recommend and review guidance, doctrine, and operational plans; suggest training and exercises; keep a central collection of civilian harm information; learn from investigations and put those lessons into policy and training; coordinate with combatant commands, the State Department, other agencies, and nongovernmental experts; and carry out other tasks the Secretary assigns. Each year the Secretary must send a report on the Center’s activities to the congressional defense committees and post it on a Department of Defense website.

Title 10, §184

Armed Forces — Source: USLM XML via OLRC

(a)The Secretary of Defense shall operate the Civilian Protection Center of Excellence. The purpose of the Center shall be to—

(1)serve as the focal point for matters related to civilian casualties and other forms of civilian harm resulting from military operations involving the United States Armed Forces; and

(2)institutionalize and advance knowledge, practices, and tools for preventing, mitigating, and responding to civilian harm.

(b)The Center shall be used to—

(1)develop standardized civilian-harm operational reporting and data management processes to improve data collection, sharing, and learning across the Department of Defense;

(2)develop, recommend, and review guidance, and the implementation of guidance, on how the Department responds to civilian harm;

(3)develop recommended guidance for addressing civilian harm across the full spectrum of armed conflict and for use in doctrine and operational plans;

(4)recommend training and exercises for the prevention and investigation of civilian harm;

(5)develop a repository of civilian casualty and civilian harm information;

(6)capture lessons learned from assessments and investigations of civilian casualty incidents and supporting institutionalization of such lessons learned within policy, doctrine, training, exercises, and tactics, techniques, and procedures of the Department of Defense;

(7)support the coordination and synchronization of efforts across combatant commands, the Department of State, and other relevant United States Government departments and agencies to prevent, mitigate, and respond to incidents of civilian harm;

(8)engage with nongovernmental organizations and civilian casualty experts; and

(9)perform such other functions as the Secretary of Defense may specify.

(c)The Secretary of Defense shall submit to the congressional defense committees, and make publicly available on an appropriate website of the Department, an annual report on the activities of the Center.

Notes & Related Subsidiaries

Editorial Notes

Codification Another section 184 was renumbered section 185 of this title.

Prior Provisions

A prior section 184 was renumbered section 342 of this title.

Statutory Notes and Related Subsidiaries

Deadline for Establishment Pub. L. 117–263, div. A, title X, § 1082(b), Dec. 23, 2022, 136 Stat. 2799, provided that: “The Civilian Protection Center of Excellence, as required under section 184 of title 10, United States Code, as added by subsection (a), shall be established by not later than 90 days after the date of the enactment of this Act [Dec. 23, 2022].”

§184 Civilian Protection Center of Excellence