The Gaza Strip now has less than 20 percent of the limited electricity supplies it had before the conflict began. Sara Badiei, an ICRC water engineer in Gaza, describes the devastating knock-on …
Haiyan, the world’s most powerful typhoon to make landfall, not only destroyed lives and livelihoods but left millions of houses in central Philippines in ruins. More than eight months after the …
Historic Pembroke College, Oxford was the host of a 2-day workshop last week which brought together academics, government and military lawyers from the UK, US, Canada, continental Europe and Israel. …
For many injured and sick people in Bangui, access to medical care has become very difficult. Julien Columeau, an ICRC delegate who spent four months in the country, describes the extreme …
Tabou, Côte d'Ivoire, 17 May 2014. Staff of the ICRC, the French Red Cross and the Danish Refugee Council prepare to leave Tabou for Grabo. Their cargo consists mainly of tents and medical supplies. …
Egypt has witnessed frequent violence over the last three years, resulting in many injuries and deaths. In response, the ICRC provided the Egyptian Red Crescent with the training, equipment and …
On the ground, the ICRC works hand-in-hand with the South Sudan Red Cross to provide aid and support to people made vulnerable by the conflict. Since December 2013, the ICRC has distributed food and …
Months after fighting stopped in Zamboanga, southwest Philippines, a reported 40,000 people remain displaced from their homes, living in difficult conditions in overcrowded evacuation centres or …
The Ethiopia Red Cross Society, assisted by the ICRC, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and the Swiss Red Cross Society, is responding to the urgent needs of …
Throughout the Middle East, people are suffering from water shortages. The rising violence of the past few years and record-low rainfall have made clean water increasingly difficult to come by – …
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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.
