World Humanitarian Day 2015
Every year on 19 August, the international community marks World Humanitarian Day in recognition of aid workers who have lost their lives in the course of their duty. It is also a day to celebrate …
Every year on 19 August, the international community marks World Humanitarian Day in recognition of aid workers who have lost their lives in the course of their duty. It is also a day to celebrate …
Violence affecting Africa's Lake Chad region has forced thousands of people to flee their homes. The ICRC and the Cameroon Red Cross recently distributed food and household items to displaced persons …
Once you catch the volunteer bug, there's no getting rid of it. The dedication grows with each passing year, along with the smiles, the thank-yous and the hugs. Mario Alberto Jiménez caught the bug …
Snakes. Scorpions. Dirty drinking water. These are the dangers that ICRC field delegate Aysha Michot faces when she travels into remote and isolated villages in South Sudan, an assignment she sought …
Maissam Hamoui lives with her family in Aleppo. The war has been a part of family life for more than four years now. "I could get a nice job in France where both of my brothers live, but I have to …
6 August 2015. Thursday night. My first weekend in Kabul had just begun. I wasn't particularly tired or sleepy. On the contrary, I was excited about being in Afghanistan - a country that I had …
In June and July this year the ICRC Mobile Surgical Teams (MST) performed more than 600 emergency surgeries in South Sudan and over 6,000 since the beginning of the crisis in December 2013. ICRC …
Najmuddin Hilal was only 18 when he lost his leg to a landmine. He spent the next year in a hospital, slowly recuperating. Then five more years at home, unable to work or lead a normal life. "During …
The ICRC has been present in Djibouti for the last 24 years. Djibouti, which is covered by the ICRC regional delegation in Nairobi, has been working to put families separated by armed conflict back …
After fleeing Syria Jamil and his family thought they were safe in Lebanon until an unexploded bomb from the 2006 conflict with Israel shattered their lives Article published in The Guardian on 11 …
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Created in 1863, the ICRC library, alongside the ICRC archives, provides an indispensable documentary reference on the organization itself and international humanitarian law.
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 international humanitarian law consists of rules that come from "a general practice accepted as law" and that exist independent of treaty law.