Also known as the Law of Armed Conflict, IHL aims to protect life and human dignity during armed conflict and to reduce and prevent the suffering and destruction that result from war. Developed by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in close association with the Ministries of Education of the respective countries, the different textbooks and teaching guides offer between eight and twenty academic hours of educational activities.

Secondary school pupils between the ages of 10 and 17 years, including students of colleges and lyceums (especially military colleges and lyceums) benefit from the programme. As of July 2003, more than 10 million manuals have been published and distributed. Initiated in 1995, the Secondary School Programme in the CIS is the ICRC's longest-running educational programme. Every year, it reaches out to more than five million young people and 180,000 teachers in the Russian Federation, the South Caucasus and Central Asia. Through the insertion of IHL into the respective course curricula, the teaching of the basics of this body of law has already become a compulsory feature in a number of CIS countries. By the end of 2007, it is planned that governments have fully incorporated the teaching of basic rules and principles of IHL into their educational practices.