Before stating the terms of the problem we intend to examine, it is necessary first of all to explain what is meant by “the imperative necessity of implementing international humanitarian law”.

The remarkable advances made during the last few years in technology, and particularly in electronics, and the increasingly rapid development of scientific inventions are likely to render obsolete the protective markings of the medical service as laid down in the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949.

A plus d'une reprise, certains milieux médicaux internationaux ont souhaité voir paraître une étude qui résumerait et analyserait les dispositions des Conventions de Genève de 1949 intéressant directement les médecins, et qui mettrait en lumière non seulement les devoirs que leur tracent ces Conventions, mais aussi les droits qu'elles leur donnent.

Les prisonniers de guerre, les internés civils et autres victims de la guerre sont autorisés à entretenir avec leur famille une correspondance et à transmettre régulièrement de leurs nouvelles. Le nombre des correspondances expédiées peut être réduit, selon les circonstances, mais le droit à la correspondance a été établi fermement par les Conventions de Genève de 1949.

The Central Tracing Agency is a permanent and integral part of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Yet it retains an autonomous character during conflicts, as laid down in the four Geneva Conventions.

It is the duty of the Central Tracing Agency to carry out the mandate entrusted in time of war to the two central information agencies mentioned in Article 123 of the Third Convention and Article 140 of the Fourth Convention, namely: the central information agency for prisoners of war, and the central information agency for civilian internees and other protected persons. The Geneva Conventions contain about twenty–five articles relating to the role of these agencies, their relations with the Detaining Power, with the “Power of origin”, with the captives and with their families.

Red Cross doctrine and human rights doctrine have gradually converged, revealing spheres of activity and formal research common to both. It may be interesting to consider to what degree the idea of protection of human rights was present in the minds of the founders of the Red Cross, and how their original purposes were extended until they included some basic aspects of protection of the human individual.

The ICRC has on various occasions drawn the attention of National Red Cross Societies to the importance of an ever wider dissemination of the Geneva Conventions. In March 1971, it sent them a letter relating to the teaching of international humanitarian law in universities. Recently it reverted to the subject in a circular which we publish below, followed by the outline of a course on international humanitarian law which Mr. Jean Pictet, Vice-President of the ICRC, is giving at the University of Geneva, and which he has authorized us to reproduce.

In any discussion about security, the primary consideration must be the need to preserve the neutrality, independence and impartiality of humanitarian action. This is the essential precondition for the ICRC's ability to protect and assist the victims of conflict. Sooner or later, any humanitarian activity which runs counter to these fundamental principles either incurs the mistrust of the people it intends to assist or becomes completely paralysed.

We take pleasure in publishing the following study which was written in the spring of 1971. Some passages, as readers will observe, are no longer topical, such as the information given on the Conference of Government Experts, for our readers will know that, the 1971 conference is being followed by a second session from 3 May to 3 June 1972, in Geneva.

The study appeared in L'Univers politique 1970, and we express our thanks to the Editions Richelieu, Paris, for authorizing reproduction in our Review. (Ed.)

For decades it has been taboo to mention the role played by religious organizations in development cooperation. Today, however, there is growing awareness of the contribution that these organizations can make to sustainable development, just as there is of the risk they pose of abuse and conflict aggravation. Those involved in development therefore have to learn to cope with the double-edged nature of these organizations. Government donor agencies and faith-based organizations should jointly monitor their work in conflict-prone areas to ascertain whether it fosters peaceful settlement of conflict or whether, in fact, it aggravates the violence.

The motivations of armed groups are widely considered to be irrelevant for the applicability of international humanitarian law (IHL). As long as organized violence is of sufficient intensity, and armed groups have sufficient capacity to coordinate and carry out military operations, there is an armed conflict for purposes of international law. It follows that large-scale criminal organizations can, in principle, be treated legally on a par with political insurgent groups. Drug cartels in particular, if sufficiently armed and well organized, can constitute armed opposition groups in the legal sense when their confrontation with State forces is sufficiently intense. This article problematizes this interpretation. It corroborates standing legal doctrine in finding that subjective motives are not a sound basis to exclude the application of IHL, but it argues that a workable distinction can be made between the strategic logic and the organizational goals of criminal groups and those of political insurgents. Drawing on a growing body of empirical studies on the political economy of criminal violence, a strong presumption is defended against qualifying as armed conflict organized violence involving criminal organizations.

Over the past five years, various developments in the international aid policy sphere have resurfaced a decades-old discussion about the link between humanitarian action, development and peace efforts – the so-called “triple nexus”. This discussion focuses on protracted conflicts and fragile settings, as these are environments where humanitarian funding and response are overstretched and where development and peace struggle to take hold.

Three important reference points in this policy environment are the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),1 the Agenda for Humanity2 and the twin United Nations (UN) resolutions on sustaining peace.3 These various commitments have been driving development actors to seek ways to engage earlier and remain present in conflict-affected areas.4 They have mobilized many donors and organizations around a vision in which humanitarian action works to reduce needs, risks and vulnerability, in addition to responding to needs,5 and they have spurred the UN system into organizational reforms to ensure a system-wide coherent effort towards the SDGs, including in places affected by conflict.6 They have also been accompanied by renewed calls for, and efforts towards, greater transparency, efficiency, accountability, collaboration and results across the international aid system.

Efforts to achieve the right synergy between humanitarian action, development and peace efforts have again regained momentum globally. But they have also raised concerns within the humanitarian community about a shrinking space for neutral, impartial and independent humanitarian action during armed conflict.

In this Q&A, Policy Adviser Filipa Schmitz Guinote discusses the International Committee of the Red Cross's (ICRC) policy reflections on the interface between humanitarian action, development and peace, and the so-called “triple nexus” discussion. She unpacks some of the conceptual and practical tensions around humanitarian principles and humanitarian identity in the interaction between humanitarian, development and peace actors. She also outlines the rationale behind the ICRC's work with affected people in protracted conflicts, against the backdrop of an ICRC Institutional Strategy which commits the organization to building sustainable humanitarian impact with affected people and working with others.

The Great War was globalized and totalized1 by the inclusion of colonial and newly independent people from all over the world and of civilians, old people, women and children. The European war became a laboratory for all the suffering of the century, from the extermination of the Armenians to the refugee crisis, the internments, and the unending modernization of warfare.

To consider the relationship between war and the media is to look at the way in which the media are involved in conflict, either as targets (war on the media) or as an auxiliary (war thanks to the media). On the basis of this distinction, four major developments may be cited that today combine to make war above all a media spectacle: photography, which opened the door to manipulation through stage-management; live technologies, which raise the question of journalists' critical distance vis-à-vis the material they broadcast and which can facilitate the process of using them; pressure on the media and media globalization, which have led to a change in the way the political and military authorities go about making propaganda; and, finally, the fact that censorship has increasingly come into disrepute, which has prompted the authorities to think of novel ways of controlling journalists.

In armed conflicts and crises, children with disabilities face serious threats to their lives and safety, including those related to their inability to flee attacks, risk of abandonment, lack of access to assistive devices, lack of access to basic services and denial of education as well as experiences of stigma, abuse, psychological harm and poverty. Children with disabilities experience multiple and intersecting forms of human rights violations based on their disability and age. Since 2015, Human Rights Watch has documented the impact of armed conflict on children with disabilities in Afghanistan, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Gaza Strip in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, South Sudan, Syria and Yemen. While international human rights specifically call for the protection of children with disabilities in situations of armed conflict, the United Nations, governments, parties to the conflict and humanitarian actors have long neglected their specific rights and needs. There is an urgent need for the United Nations and governments to increase efforts to protect children with disabilities as part of their international commitments to protect all children impacted by hostilities. Their attention and investment in those most at risk of violence during armed conflicts will in turn enhance protection measures for everyone.

Les milieux économiques exercent depuis longtemps une influence majeure sur l'évolution géopolitique mondiale. Aujourd'hui, la communauté internationale et les médias s'intéressent de plus près aux questions de responsabilité des entreprises privées, et depuis peu au rôle des acteurs économiques dans les conflits armés. En parallèle, de nombreuses compagnies se sont dotées de codes de conduite qui s'inspirent de normes reconnues au plan international, notamment dans le domaine du droit du travail et des droits de l'homme. Sur cette toile de fond, il s'agit de bien cerner les divers objectifs qui motivent le monde des affaires et les organisations humanitaires a établir des ponts entre eux.

Les compagnies privées sont amenées à engager du personnel de sécurité pour protéger leurs installations et leur personnel lorsqu'elles opèrent dans des zones instables. De ce fait se pose la question de la pertinence du droit international humanitaire dans le contexte d'activités économiques privées. Le CICR a décidé de mettre en œuvre une stratégic spécifique envers lesfirmes qui opèrent en zones conflictuelles, et ce dans le but d'améliorer sa capacité à protéger et assister les victimes de conflits armés. Cette stratégie comprend entre autres la promotion des principes humanitaires fondamentaux ainsi que l'établissement d'un dialogue sur le terrain visant à sensibiliser les acteurs économiques sur des préoccupations humanitaires spécifiques.

The recent war in Iraq is a perfect illustration of the growing risks faced by journalists working in conflict zones. It is therefore important to call renewed attention to the fact that attacks against journalists and media equipment are illegal under international humanitarian law, which protects civilian persons and objects, as long as they are not making an effective contribution to military action: The media cannot be considered a legitimate target, even if they are being used for propaganda purposes, unless they are being exploited to instigate grave breaches of humanitarian law. Journalists and media personnel also benefit from precautionary measures — not confined to them alone — such as the principle of proportionality and the obligation to give advance warning. There is nonetheless an evident need for the adoption of a new instrument, on the one hand to reaffirm those elements of humanitarian law that apply to journalists and media personnel, and thus to reestablish the authority of certain basic rules that are all too often flouted, and, on the other hand, to improve existing law and adapt it to the requirements of today, for instance the phenomenon of “embedded” journalists. Such is the goal of the “Declaration on the safety of journalists and media personnel in situations involving armed conflict”, drawn up in 2003 by Reporters without Borders.

The main purpose of this brief study is to show the importance of international humanitarian law, in particular the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols of 1977, for internally displaced persons, i.e. persons displaced within their own country, and to refugees, i.e. persons who have fled their country. Not only does this body of international law protect them when they are victims of armed conflict, but its rules — if scrupulously applied — would make it possible to avoid the majority of displacements.