Hope where war persists
In light of today’s global crises, this panel explores how, even in contexts dominated by war, acts of solidarity and humanity can generate tangible forms of hope. Armed conflicts - both internal and international - severely harm civilian populations: social infrastructures collapse, mortality and morbidity increase, and communities face extreme insecurity, fear, displacement, and isolation.
Yet war does not completely erase humanisation. This persistence is not primarily due to governments adhering to legal or ethical norms, but rather to individuals and organisations that continue to respond to vulnerability. Driven by a fundamental human inclination to care for others, these actors sustain humane practices even amid violence.
Through documented cases where solidarity takes root during conflict, the panel argues that hope is not merely aspirational but a concrete social reality. Embodied in everyday acts of care and mutual aid, these practices resist dehumanisation and help preserve social bonds, pointing toward possibilities for recovery beyond war.
SPEAKERS
Dr Caesar Atuire
Dr Atuire is a philosopher and health ethicist. He is currently the Ethics and Governance Lead for the MSc in International Health and Tropical Medicine. He is also Co-Associate
Director of Oxford Global Health. He holds an Adjunct Professorship of Philosophy at the University of Ghana and he is an affiliate Instructor at the University of Washington’s Department of Bioethics and Humanities. He is currently leading a team of highly qualified colleagues from across the globe on a Wellcome Discovery Award to explore conceptualizations of solidarity and to design a solidarity index for ranking global health funders. He is also the President of the International Association of Bioethics (2024-2026).
Sir Stephen Bubb
Sir Stephen Bubb is the founding director of the Gradel Institute. He is globally recognised as a leading voice in charity and philanthropy, and has provided advice to governments nationally and internationally. He has led the development of the charity sector in the UK through his 16-year leadership of the organisation for charity chief executives (ACEVO). He has worked with successive governments developing public sector and charity policy. He has received accolades for his leadership work from former UK Prime Ministers Tony Blair and David Cameron, and was knighted in 2011. Sir Stephen is a Patron of the Muslim Charity Forum and a trustee of Pro Terra Sancta UK – a charity that supports projects in the Holy Land – and of the American Friends of the Oxford Union.
Giacomo Gentile
Mr Gentile studied at the University of Milan (Italy), where he earned both a BA and an MA in International Relations. He then continued his studies at the Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI) in Milan. From 2010 to 2012, he participated in an exchange programme between Italy’s and America’s Chambers of Commerce, working in New York in the field of international trade. Since 2014, he has been working at the PTS Pro Terra Sancta – an NGO that works in the Middle East in the areas where the Franciscan Friars of the Custody of the Holy Land are present – and, since 2022, he has held the position of General Project Coordinator, overseeing and directing projects that frequently bring him to Israel, Palestine, Lebanon and Syria.
Dr Ilaria Bertini
Dr Bertini is a Research Fellow at the Bios Centre – a UK based institute that promotes research, education and dialogue in bioethics – since 2018. She holds a Ph.D in Constitutional Law (University of Milan-Bicocca and London City University) with a background in Philosophy. From 2015 to 2017, she held a research position at the Fundamental Rights Laboratory in Turin (Italy) where she worked on a project on reproductive technologies that resulted in her monograph New Forms of Parenting. Use and Abuse of the Word “Nature” (Nuove forme di filiazione e genitorialità. Uso e abuso del richiamo alla natura, Il Mulino, 2018). Her research interests include the withdrawal of life sustaining treatments, euthanasia and assisted suicide, reproductive ethics and medical ethics.