The Honourable Sergio Jaramillo Caro is the Colombian Vice-Minister of Defence. Mr Jaramillo Caro studied philosophy and philology at Trinity College, University of Toronto, and Corpus Christi College, University of Oxford. He has an M. Phil. in philosophy from Cambridge University and was a doctoral candidate in Greek at the University of Heidelberg in Germany. He has been an adviser to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was in charge of diplomacy for peace (2000–1), and was political counsellor at the Colombian embassy in Paris (2001–2). He was also adviser for political and strategic affairs at the Ministry of Defence (2002–3) and drafted the policy of Democratic Security. From 2004 to 2006 he served as director of the Ideas for Peace Foundation in Bogotá.
* The interview was conducted on 11 December 2008 by Toni Pfanner, Editor-in-Chief of the International Review of the Red Cross, Nils Melzer, legal adviser at the ICRC and principal author of Interpretive Guidance on the Notion of Direct Participation in Hostilities under International Humanitarian Law, and Kathleen Gibson, assistant editor of the Review.