Massimo Marelli

Institution: International Committee of the Red Cross

Period of stay: 1 September - 14 December 2026

Contact: 

https://blogs.icrc.org/law-and-policy/contributor/massimo-marelli/

Profile: 

Massimo Marelli is the Head of the Data Protection Office at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

He is also a member of the Advisory Board and a Fellow at the European Centre on Privacy and Cybersecurity (ECPC) at the University of Maastricht, and co-director of the Humanitarian Action Programme at ECPC.

Prior to his current role, Massimo led the creation and establishment of the ICRC Delegation for Cyberspace in Luxembourg and held several assignments with the ICRC in the field and at the headquarters. Prior to joining the ICRC Massimo worked as a Référendaire at the General Court of the European Union, and as a lawyer in private practice in London and Brussels. He has also held appointments as Visiting Fellow at the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law at the University of Cambridge and member of the Brussels Privacy Hub Advisory Board.

Research Area:

Data Protection, International Law, Cybersecurity

Research Title:

Developing a Research Agenda for Data Protection in Humanitarian Action

Research Outline:

Digital technologies and infrastructures have become integral to humanitarian work over the past decade. This digital transformation has brought new opportunities as well as new challenges. The complexity of emerging technologies, combined with the concentration of market power and the multiplicity of expertise required to analyse and navigate risks and opportunities, makes cooperation and multi-stakeholder initiatives essential for the sector. 

This research work involves questions at the intersection of data protection and privacy law, international law, and cybersecurity. It builds directly on prior work in this space, including the Handbook on Data Protection in Humanitarian Action (in its third edition) and, most recently, the edited volume Data Protection in Humanitarian Action: Responding to Crises in a Data-Driven World (Routledge, 2025), which took stock of a decade of progress in data protection in humanitarian contexts. Those efforts consolidated established practice and reflected on past achievements. There is now a need for forward-looking engagement to identify the key challenges shaping humanitarian action in the coming decade. 

This project entails convening experts from multiple stakeholder groups to develop a structured, exploratory, interdisciplinary effort to anticipate emerging risks and opportunities. It sets out a coherent agenda for research and policy-making that can both guide responsible and principled digital transformation across the sector and ensure the meaningful and relevant delivery of humanitarian programmes in the decade to come, fully addressing emerging challenges linked to the evolution of the humanitarian space.

SRRN page:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=4905623

Publications:

Data Protection in Humanitarian Action: Responding to Crises in a Data-Driven World (https://www.routledge.com/Data-Protection-in-Humanitarian-Action-Respon… )

Handbook on Data Protection in Humanitarian Action

( https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/handbook-on-data-protection-in-hum… )

The law and practice of international organizations’ interactions with personal data protection domestic regulation: At the crossroads between the international and domestic legal orders (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clsr.2023.105849 )

Transferring personal data to international organizations under the GDPR: an analysis of the transfer mechanisms (https://doi.org/10.1093/idpl/ipad022 )

Hacking humanitarians: Defining the cyber perimeter and developing a cyber security strategy for international humanitarian organizations in digital transformation (https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-review-of-the-red… )

The SolarWinds hack: Lessons for international humanitarian organizations (https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-review-of-the-red… )

Artificial Intelligence in Humanitarian Action: Humanity and the Machine - Chapter 13, in The Routledge Handbook of Artificial Intelligence and International Relations (https://www.routledge.com/The-Routledge-Handbook-of-Artificial-Intellig… )

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