The Revealing History of an Allied Fact-Finding Mission in the Sea of Marmara and a Lone Delegate of the International Committee of the Red Cross

2021 ◽  
pp. 198-213
1963 ◽  
Vol 3 (32) ◽  
pp. 606-606

The last issue of the International Review contained an article on the book which Mr. Pierre Boissier has just had published: Histoire du Comité international de la Croix-Rouge. The first volume, in French, is available from the Editions Plon, Paris. The German edition is still being prepared.


Author(s):  
Adel Hamzah Othman

The relevance of the problem under study lies in the presence of armed conflicts in the international arena and the presence of a diverse abundance of ways to regulate them. The main purpose of this study is to identify the main provisions of international law applicable in international conflicts through the lens of the role of the Committee of the Red Cross in its development. This study covers and thoroughly analyses the history and the main purpose of the origin of the organisation. Furthermore, the study engages in an in-depth examination of the basic tasks and principles of the Committee's activities. As a result of the study, the existing theories of the participation and influence of the Committee in international legal relations will be clearly identified, as well as those theories that have emerged due to innovations in legal thinking and are capable of covering the specific features of the practice and effectiveness of this non-governmental organisation. In addition, the designation of the actual problems of the existence of this organisation, its relevance in the modern world, and the strength of the support of the world society. Among the successes of the scientific analysis of the role of the International Committee of the Red Cross in the development of international humanitarian law applicable in international conflicts is the reasoned hypotheses and confirmed statements of the importance of the Committee, which are described by the features of modernity, relevance, and compliance with the information and technological development of social relations of participants in healthy international relations, their supporters and opponents. This also includes the systematisation of scientific research, their analysis and reasonable refutation. A journey into the history of the emergence of international conflicts, their modification according to the development of social relations, as well as the processes of globalisation, will be the subject of comparative analysis aimed at identifying new methods and ways to avoid them


2021 ◽  
pp. 256-275
Author(s):  
Eyal Benvenisti ◽  
Doreen Lustig

During the course of the second half of the 19th century, the rules regulating the conduct of armies during hostilities were internationally codified for the first time. The conventional narrative attributes the codification of the laws of war to the campaign of civil society, especially that of the founders of the Red Cross—Henry Dunant and Gustav Moynier. In what follows, we problematize this narrative and trace the construction of this knowledge. We explore how the leading figures of the Red Cross, who were aware of the shortcomings of their project, were nonetheless invested in narrating its history as a history of success. Their struggle to control the narrative would eventually confer the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) with considerable interpretive and agenda-setting authority in the realm of the laws of war. We dwell on the meaning of this conscious exercise in knowledge production and its normative ramifications.


Author(s):  
Weiss Thomas G

This chapter begins by defining some key terms, including humanitarian action, humanitarianism, humanitarian space, and humanitarian intervention. It then examines the history of humanitarian action in wars through the lenses of three historical periods: the 19th century until World War I; the early 20th century through the end of the Cold War; and the last quarter-century. Next, it describes the entities that exert influence on the ground from outside a war zone: international NGOs, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the UN system, bilateral aid agencies, external military forces, for-profit firms, and the media. Operating alongside, and sometimes in opposition to, external agents in a particular war zone are local actors, which include NGOs and businesses as well as the armed belligerents. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the coordination of the various moving parts of the international humanitarian system.


1951 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 776-777
Author(s):  
Manley O. Hudson

The remarkable achievement of the Conference on Protection of Victims of War, which sat at Geneva from April 21 to August 12,1949, stands out as a landmark in the history of international legislation. It was possible only because of a long and patient course of preparation, chiefly due to the efforts of the International Committee of the Red Cross.


2018 ◽  
Vol 100 (907-909) ◽  
pp. 71-96
Author(s):  
Daniel Palmieri

AbstractThe International Review of the Red Cross (formerly the Bulletin Internationale des Sociétés de Secours aux Militaires Blessés) is celebrating its 150th anniversary in 2019, making it the oldest of the general publications produced by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Originally created as a communication tool for the entire International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, the Review rapidly changed its course to become first the primary mouthpiece of the ICRC for many years, and finally an academic journal. This article will retrace the history of this evolution, during which, under cover of humanitarianism, political factors played a significant role.


2014 ◽  
Vol 96 (895-896) ◽  
pp. 817-857 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marion Harroff-Tavel

AbstractIn a globalizing world marked by geopolitical upheaval, unprecedented threats to human security, new forms of violence and technological revolutions, particularly in the area of information technology, it is no simple task to raise awareness of international humanitarian law (IHL) applicable to armed conflict and ensure that warring parties comply with this body of law. This article traces the history of the International Committee of the Red Cross's (ICRC) work in promoting IHL from 1864 to the present, juxtaposing this history with important events in international relations and with the organization's (sometimes traumatizing) experiences that ultimately gave rise to innovative programmes. The article summarizes lively debates that took place at the ICRC around such topics as the place of ethics in the promotion of IHL, respect for cultural diversity in the various methods used to promote this body of law, and how much attention should be devoted to youth – as well as the most effective way to do so. The author concludes by sharing her personal views on the best way to promote IHL in the future by drawing on the lessons of the past.


2017 ◽  
Vol 99 (905) ◽  
pp. 535-545

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has a long history of working with missing persons and their families. Based on its statutory mandate as enshrined in the 1949 Geneva Conventions, their 1977 Additional Protocols, the Statutes of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and resolutions of the International Conferences of the Red Cross and Red Crescent,1 the ICRC has worked to prevent people from going missing and has facilitated family contact and reunification. It has also worked to clarify the fate and whereabouts of missing persons since 1870, during the Franco-Prussian War, when it pioneered the compilation of lists of prisoners of war and the introduction of “the wearing of a badge so that the dead could be identified”.2The ICRC promoted and strengthened its engagement towards missing persons and their families when it organized the first ever International Conference of Governmental and Non-Governmental Experts on Missing Persons in 2003.3 Today, the ICRC carries out activities in favour of missing persons and their families in around sixty countries worldwide. In 2018, it embarked on a new project setting technical standards in relation to missing persons and their families, together with expert partners and a global community of practitioners who have a shared objective – preventing people from going missing, providing answers on the fate and whereabouts of missing persons, and responding to the specific needs of their families.This Q&A explores the ICRC's current work on the issue of the missing and will, in particular, explore the ways in which the ICRC's Missing Persons Project aims to position the missing and their families at the centre of the humanitarian agenda.


2018 ◽  
Vol 100 (907-909) ◽  
pp. 143-163
Author(s):  
Ismaël Raboud ◽  
Matthieu Niederhauser ◽  
Charlotte Mohr

AbstractThe International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Library was first created at the initiative of the ICRC's co-founder and president, Gustave Moynier. By the end of the nineteenth century, it had become a specialized documentation centre with comprehensive collections on the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, international humanitarian law (IHL) and relief to war victims, keeping track of the latest legal debates and technological innovations in the fields related to the ICRC's activities. The publications collected by the Library until the end of the First World War form a rich collection of almost 4,000 documents now known as the ancien fonds, the Library's Heritage Collection.Direct witness to the birth of an international humanitarian movement and of IHL, the Heritage Collection contains the era's most important publications related to the development of humanitarian action for war victims, from the first edition of Henry Dunant's groundbreaking Un souvenir de Solférino to the first mission reports of ICRC delegates and the handwritten minutes of the Diplomatic Conference that led to the adoption of the 1864 Geneva Convention. This article looks at the way this unique collection of documents retraces the history of the ICRC during its first decades of existence and documents its original preoccupations and operations, highlighting the most noteworthy items of the Collection along the way.


2018 ◽  
Vol 60 (1) ◽  
pp. 90-118
Author(s):  
Pamela Ballinger

AbstractThis article examines extended debates after World War II over the repatriation of Italian civilians from Albania, part of the Italian fascist empire from 1939 until 1943. Italy's decolonization, when it is studied at all, usually figures as rapid and non-traumatic, and an inevitable byproduct of Italy's defeat in the war. The tendency to gloss over the complexities of decolonization proves particularly marked in the Albanian case, given the brevity of Italy's formal rule over that country and the overwhelming historiographical focus on the Italian military experience there. In recovering the complex history of Italian and Albanian relations within which negotiations over repatriation occurred, this article demonstrates the prolonged process of imperial repatriation and its consequences for the individuals involved. In some cases, Italian citizens, and their families, only “returned” home to Italy in the 1990s. The repatriation of these “remainders” of empire concerned not only the Italian and Albanian states but also local committees (notably the Circolo Garibaldi) and international organizations, including the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration and the International Committee of the Red Cross. In recuperating this history, the analysis rejects seeming truisms about the forgotten or repressed memory of Italian colonialism. Drawing upon critical theories of “gaps,” the article addresses the methodological challenges in writing such a history.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document