2013 marks the 30th anniversary of the ICRC’s Water and Habitat Unit. Their engineers help ensure that people have access to this vital resource using affordable technologies and sustainable …
Statement by the ICRC, meeting of States Parties to the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on their …
Colombia, checkpoint near Chuapal, San José del Guaviare. Security concerns must be balanced by humanitarian considerations in all situations. This means giving ambulances and other medical vehicles …
In recent years, parties to armed conflicts have increasingly recruited private military and security companies (PMSCs) to undertake tasks traditionally carried out by the armed forces. The …
Private military and security companies – known as PMSCs – working in situations of armed conflict are also obliged to respect the provisions of international humanitarian law (IHL). What are PMSCs? …
Statement on the death of former South African President Nelson Mandela by ICRC president Peter Maurer. It is with great sadness that I learned of the passing on 5 December of Nelson Mandela at the …
Emergency appeals 2014: Budget by country …
Pinalanga, Samar Island. The flag of the Philippines surrounded by a landscape of destroyed coconut trees. Typhoon Haiyan, which brought winds of up to 300 km per hour, damaged crops and thousands of …
We had been trying for days to enter Dammaj, in Saada governorate, and evacuate those wounded as a result of the fighting. Here the ICRC team is negotiating with the governor of Saada and the …
Lecture given by Pascale Meige, deputy director of operations at the ICRC, on sexual violence in conflict and other situations of …
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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.
