The ICRC as seen through the pages of the Review, 1869–1913: Personal observations

2018 ◽  
Vol 100 (907-909) ◽  
pp. 45-69
Author(s):  
David P. Forsythe

AbstractThe early years of the Review, then called the Bulletin International des Sociétés de la Croix-Rouge, provide numerous insights into the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which edited the journal. Since the ICRC was very small in those days and without support staff, one learns a great deal, especially about Gustave Moynier, who led the organization and carried out most of the editing duties at the Bulletin. The reader can trace the role of religious and other motivations, attitudes toward colonialism, the evolving nature of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and the ICRC's place therein, and complex relations with States. This early era, as richly recorded in the journal, stimulates a number of questions about further research into ICRC and Red Cross history.

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-54
Author(s):  
Fitri Adi Setyorini

This study discusses the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) role in protecting and assisting victims of the Libyan revolution in 2011. The purpose of this study is to explore more about the role of the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) in protecting and assisting victims of war as one step on a humanitarian mission. The author used the non-government organizations (NGOs) and humanitarian action concepts. The author's research method to analyze this study was a descriptive method through a literature review. Based on research done, the author found that the revolution in Libya in 2011 was one of the effects of the Arab Spring in the Middle East region. The author also found that the ICRC carried out its humanitarian missions by providing food, water, medical supplies, medical equipment, and clothing.


Author(s):  
Saverio Bellizzi ◽  
Giuseppe Pichierri ◽  
Gabriele Farina ◽  
Luca Cegolon ◽  
Wiem Abdelbaki

A 3-year analysis released in August 2021 by the WHO indicated that more than 700 healthcare workers and patients have died (2,000 injured) as a result of attacks against health facilities since 2017. The COVID-19 pandemic has made the risks even worse for doctors, nurses, and support staff, unfortunately. According to the latest figures from the International Committee of the Red Cross, 848 COVID-19-related violent incidents were recorded in 2020, and this is likely an underrepresentation of a much more widespread phenomenon. In response to rises in COVID-19-related attacks against healthcare, some countries have taken action. In Algeria, for instance, the penal code was amended to increase protection for healthcare workers against attacks and to punish individuals who damage health facilities. In the United Kingdom, the police, crime, sentencing, and courts bill proposed increased the maximum penalty from 12 months to 2 years in prison for anyone who assaults an emergency worker. Measures taken by countries represent a good practical way to counteract this crisis within COVID-19. However, we stress the importance of primary prevention with the use of communication: social media and other communication channels are fundamentally important to combat violence against health professionals, both to inform the population with quality data and to disseminate campaigns to prevent these acts.


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


2020 ◽  
pp. 268-288
Author(s):  
Dawnie Steadman ◽  
Sarah Wagner

This chapter explores the evolving role of forensic genetics in human rights investigations and as a technology of postmortem identification for missing persons in ongoing conflict and post-conflict societies. How has DNA’s increasingly privileged place as a line of evidence impacted the field in terms of both medico-legal standards and heightened expectations among surviving kin and their communities? Drawing on interviews with leading figures in the field of forensic science and human rights/transitional justice (e.g., the International Commission on Missing Persons, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the Equipo Argentino de Antropología Forense, and the Colibrí Center for Human Rights), buttressed by ethnographic analysis of exhumation and identification efforts in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Uganda, the chapter provides an overview and commentary about the technology’s complicated place in unearthing truths and effecting repair.


2019 ◽  
Vol 101 (910) ◽  
pp. 197-215
Author(s):  
Cédric Cotter

AbstractPresidents of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) occupy a special position: they are not only direct witnesses to the march of history, but they also participate in it given their prominent role in the humanitarian sphere. This dual status becomes particularly salient when they write about the organization they run. By reviewing the published writings of ICRC presidents, this article analyzes how these individuals combine their personal experience with the organization's history, and the role this history plays in their writing.


1974 ◽  
Vol 14 (165) ◽  
pp. 647-649

The ICRC recently considered the time had come for a report to be published on its work in Cyprus, covering the period from July to October 1974. This report was issued in the form of an illustrated booklet and contained a foreword by Mr. R. Gallopin, President of the Executive Council:“During the conflict in Cyprus, the 1949 Geneva Conventions once again contributed to the protection of civilian and military victims. Once again, the International Committee of the Red Cross, to which the Powers assigned the role of neutral intermediary when they signed those Conventions, had to intervene on both sides. The operations described in the following pages involved most of the functions which, in a crisis which is both internal and international, the ICRC may be called upon to fulfil in order to ensure the provision of at least the essentials of life.


Author(s):  
Giovanni Mantilla

This chapter demonstrates how the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) faced important hurdles in its early years which threatened its position as a humanitarian broker and locked a certain conservatism inside it. It recounts the history and politics of international debate on the international regulation of armed conflict until 1921. It also discusses proposals regarding humanitarian conduct in internal conflict from 1863 to 1921 and highlights the elements that generate the social pressure that is essential to rule making. The chapter refers to the importance of norm entrepreneurs, who forcefully seize on the creation of new rules, and bring and promote rules in public forums, such as rallying others around a common cause. It describes the norms of sovereignty that prevailed in Europe in the second half of the nineteenth century and militated against the emergence of legal proposals regarding internal conflicts.


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