During the 1948–1949 conflict in Palestine, the ICRC conducted a major operation for the wounded and the sick, the prisoners of war and civilian victims of the conflict. It was also one of the first international organizations to provide Palestinian refugees with concrete help: to begin with, starting in July 1948, through the delegation it had opened several months earlier in Palestine to carry out its traditional protection and assistance work there; later, by setting up the ICRC Commissariat for Relief to Palestine Refugees, which, alongside other organizations, acted as a distribution agency within the framework of the United Nations Relief for Palestine Refugees. In 1950, this activity was taken over by UNWRA.

Le titre donné à mon exposé paraîtra bien ambitieux ou du moins le sujet trop vaste. De fait, mon propos est de présenter, à bâtons rompus, quelques réflexions et expériences d'un praticien du droit humanitaire, qui a eu la chance insigne d'être associé à ce travail fascinant dès le début de sa carrière.

This article clarifies the control a State should have over an armed group for the triggering act of an international armed conflict and for the internationalization of non-international armed conflicts in international humanitarian law. It explains the reasons for the distinction between these two types of attribution and details the specificities of each test, with an innovative approach. The author proposes new control tests for both triggering and internationalization, rejecting the effective and overall control tests regarding internationalization proposed by the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. For instance, regarding the internationalization of a non-international armed conflict, a general and strict control test is proposed. Finally, this article addresses specific issues like the difficult question of the control required for an occupation through an armed group.

While the dominant human rights discourse on transitional justice constitutes a mix of reinforcing aims that seek to “make peace with” a violent past, this article complicates this notion by exploring how affective memories can prevent individuals from envisioning a future for themselves in which their individual and their nation's past is safely left behind. In the context of ongoing debates over whether to remember or forget a country's traumatic past, the article will show how affective memories of violence and disappearance prevail and disrupt the reconciliation paradigm, and need to be taken into account in transitional justice processes.

This selection of photos is meant as an appeal from the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum to remember the atomic bombing of Nagasaki on 9 August 1945. It was compiled by museum director Akitoshi Nakamura based on the collection at the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum.1 Readers are invited to visit the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum and spend some time viewing its collection of over 1,000 photographs and remnants from the city at that time to get a sense of what happened before and after the atomic bombing that summer seventy years ago, and how devastating the atomic bomb's destructive effects were.

This article discusses some of the challenges that may be encountered by companies seeking to adhere to the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights and the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights when operating in conflict-affected countries. The authors argue that corporate respect for human rights may not be sufficient to correct or compensate for state failure and also suggest that the leverage or influence enjoyed by individual companies in relation to the conduct of security forces and host governments may be limited, particularly in times of crisis. There is therefore a need for a collective approach to human rights risks in conflict-affected countries, and this should focus on public security sector reform and good governance as well as on corporate due diligence.

In October 2015, by co-sponsoring United Nations Human Rights Council Resolution 30/1 entitled “Promoting Reconciliation, Accountability and Human Rights in Sri Lanka”, the Sri Lankan government formally committed to embarking on a transitional justice process following three decades of armed conflict. Several thousand people allegedly disappeared during this period, often in connection with the armed conflict or as a result of internal disturbances. It is in this context that the Office on Missing Persons (OMP) was operationalized in 2018. This article discusses the nature of tracing investigations into the fate and whereabouts of missing persons of the type to be carried out by the OMP. It argues that these investigations, while ostensibly pursuing a humanitarian approach, cannot be artificially and hermetically separated from criminal justice processes. Further, it seeks to demonstrate that an integrated approach whereby strong linkages with criminal processes are provided for and encouraged best serves the interests of truth and justice.

In this contribution, I will identify the main issues relevant for the applicability and application of international humanitarian law (IHL) in military operations under the command of the European Union (EU) and I will briefly describe the EU's practice and policy in this respect.1

Since their publication in the 1950s and 1980s respectively, the Commentaries on the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols of 1977 have become a major reference for the application and interpretation of those treaties. The International Committee of the Red Cross, together with a team of renowned experts, is currently updating these Commentaries in order to document developments and provide up-to-date interpretations of the treaty texts. Following a brief overview of the methodology and process of the update as well as a historical background to the Second Geneva Convention, this article addresses the scope of applicability of the Convention, the type of vessels it protects (in particular hospital ships and coastal rescue craft), and its relationship with other sources of international humanitarian law and international law conferring protection to persons in distress at sea. It also outlines differences and commonalities between the First and the Second Conventions, including how these have been reflected in the updated Commentary on the Second Convention. Finally, the article highlights certain substantive obligations under the Convention and how the updated Commentary addresses some of the interpretive questions they raise.

The International Committee is a Red Cross institution. It takes part in the deliberations of the International Conferences and other statutory bodies of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement of which it is the founder; but it may also be subject to rules laid down by those statutory bodies.

Any attempt to spread knowledge of international humanitarian law (the law of armed conflict) and its corresponding obligations among the military and political authorities of a country must be matched by an effort to introduce the subject into academic programmes, where the subject will be taught and studied in greater depth.

Today, international humanitarian law is a minor component of the academic curriculum at universities in the countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), constituting only a small part of the public international law course offered at leading law faculties. Until very recently, although the relevant treaties and instruments of international humanitarian law existed in the Russian language, they were not readily available in libraries and were very seldom the subject of academic study and research.

Desde el 20 de noviembre de 1986, Bélgica está obligada por las disposiciones no sólo de los Convenios de Ginebra de 1949, sino también por las de los Protocolos adicionales de 1977. Por consiguiente, todos los ciudadanos belgas deben tomar las medidas necesarias para dar cumplimiento a las obligaciones que les corresponden.

Al ratificar los Protocolos, Bélgica se comprometió a respetar y hacer respetar las citadas normas en toda circunstancia.

Ten years ago, on 8 June 1977, the Diplomatic Conference on the Reaffirmation and Development of International Humanitarian Law Applicable in Armed Conflicts adopted two Protocols additional to the Geneva Conventions of 1949, one relating to the protection of victims of international armed conflicts and the other to the protection of victims of non-international armed conflicts.

It is a pleasure for me, as Secretary-General of the League of Red Cross Societies, to write an article for the outstanding review produced by the International Committee. It is also a further opportunity to give fresh testimony to the cordial and harmonious co-operation between our two institutions, not that this needs any corroboration.

Assistance is the essence of all Red Cross actions; protection and assistance are the essence of all ICRC actions.

To approach the subject of this paper “Red Cross assistance and protection”, one should recall a few basic rules and concepts as guidelines in this study.

Firstly it should be clear that we shall not deal here with situations of natural disasters, which normally require Red Cross assistance only. Nor shall we deal with situations of internal disturbances or tensions, which involve mainly the ICRC and its activities in favour of persons detained for political or security reasons.

The application of international humanitarian law (IHL) and international human rights law to UN-mandated forces raises many questions. Several of these were discussed by a panel of academic experts, representatives of governments and international organizations, military legal advisors and ICRC lawyers in Geneva on 11–12 December 2003.

The meeting was divided into three sessions. Two were devoted to the application of international humanitarian law, and one to the application of international human rights law to UN-mandated forces, according to the following framework:

– Working session I: General application of international humanitarian law;

– Working session II: Application of the law of occupation;

– Working session III: Beyond IHL: Aspects of the application of international human rights law.

The meeting only addressed the case of UN-mandated operations, whether under UN, national or regional command and control. Multinational forces acting without a mandate from the UN Security Council were not a focus of the discussions.

The idea of making an overall revision of the Constitution and Bye-Laws of the League occurred in the context of a major evolution in the activities of the institution, corresponding to the changing needs of its members and of peoples, as a result of the rapid transformations of the modern world.