Distinction: Protecting Civilians in Armed Conflict
The cornerstone of the 1977 Additional Protocols is the principle of distinction. This leaflet provides a concise overview of the requirements of all parties to an armed conflict to distinguish …
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A Guide to the Legal Review of New Weapons, Means and Methods of Warfare
This Guide aims to assist States in establishing or improving procedures to determine the legality of new weapons, means and methods of warfare in accordance with Article 36 of Protocol I Additional …
Checklist: Domestic measures to implement the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention
The Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction, known informally as the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention, …
Antenatal Guidelines for Primary Health Care in Crisis Conditions
Within the area of mother and childcare, antenatal care plays a key role in reducing death, disease and suffering among women, whose vulnerability is always exacerbated by armed conflict and poor …
Explosive Remnants of War
This brochure highlights the risks posed by unexploded and abandoned ordnance in war-affected countries, and summarizes the Protocol on Explosive Remnants of War, a treaty adopted by States in 2003 …
Addressing Internal Displacement in Times of Armed Conflict and Other Violence
At the end of 2016 there were more than 40 million internally displaced people worldwide. They suffer extreme hardship as displacement disrupts their lives and livelihoods and exposes them to a host …
Children Associated with Armed Forces or Armed Groups
Revised and updated version! Children associated with armed forces or groups often see, suffer and perpetrate atrocities. Both the brochure and the ICRC's work with children affected by conflict and …
Targeting the Weapons: Reducing the Human Cost of Unregulated Arms Availability
The increased risk that civilians face due to the current inadequate controls on arms availability, combined with the frequent use of weapons in violation of international humanitarian law are …
Study on Customary International Humanitarian Law: A Contribution to the Understanding and Respect for the Rule of Law in Armed Conflict
This article explains the rationale behind a study on customary international humanitarian law recently undertaken by the ICRC at the request of the International Conference of the Red Cross and Red …
The Missing and their Families: Documents of Reference
This publication contains the key documents, reports, summaries and outcomes of the International Conference of Governmental and Non-Governmental Experts and the 28th International Conference of the …
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ICRC library
Created in 1863, the ICRC library, alongside the ICRC archives, provides an indispensable documentary reference on the organization itself and international humanitarian law.
IHL treaties
International humanitarian law is based on a number of treaties, in particular the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols, and a series of other instruments.
Customary IHL
Customary international humanitarian law consists of rules that come from "a general practice accepted as law" and that exist independent of treaty law.