Attacks on health workers, clinics, hospitals, ambulances and patients during periods of armed conflict or civil disturbance pose enormous challenges to humanitarian response and constitute affronts to the imperatives of human rights and civilian protection. Violence inflicted on humanitarian aid workers is gaining the global attention it warrants. While the number of attacks on aid workers has decreased in recent years, in a handful of places, notably Sudan, Afghanistan, and Somalia, they have become more spectacular and frightening, with aid agencies targeted for kidnapping and subjected to use of explosives because of their perceived affiliation with Western governments. The assaults have galvanised the humanitarian aid community to track attacks and to engage in intensive and sophisticated discussion of means to increase operational security. After worldwide consultation, in 2011 the United Nations (UN) Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) issued a report that summarised the fruits of experience and stimulated consideration of security strategies for aid providers. By contrast, however, until very recently the far larger number of incidents of violence inflicted on and interference with indigenous health services and on international and local development agencies by state and armed groups has received comparatively little attention.

The use of the term ‘victim’ as an identity can have different implications, depending on who is using it, claiming it, rejecting it or attributing it to others. Its negative connotations may have an impact on the person or persons concerned. This implies that the term should be used with some care and insight. The article analyses the use and function of the word ‘victim’ at different levels in the work and actions of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Noting the extent to which the term is or is not used with caution, it points to the evolution in awareness from a certain institutional discourse to the current careful wording displayed in research and publications. The article stresses the importance of aid workers being able to recognize the potential and active identity of a person beyond the institutional label as ‘victim’, as this constitutes an important step in respecting that person's human dignity.

This article analyses how the events of the late 1960s – and in particular the Nigeria–Biafra War – marked a turning point in the history of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). The Nigeria-Biafra conflict required the ICRC to set up and coordinate a major relief operation during a civil war in a post-colonial context, posing several new challenges for the organisation. This article shows how the difficulties encountered during the conflict highlighted the need for the Geneva-based organisation to reform the management of its operations, personnel, and communications in order to become more effective and professional. Finally, the article takes the examination of this process within the ICRC as a starting point for a broader discussion of the changing face of the humanitarian sector in the late 1960s.

The development in the last 50 years of the principles that comprise human rights law has had a major impact on international humanitarian law and indeed on international law generally. In more recent years, the movement for recognition of the equal rights of women has been exerting its own influence on human rights law and to some effect. In 1979, for example, the international community adopted the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), to which 155 States are now party. Consideration is currently being given to the adoption of an Optional Protocol that will allow for individual and group complaints to be brought before the CEDAW Committee. Governmental and non-governmental organizations have increasingly focused on women's human rights. As a result, a wide range of studies, reports and recommendations on various aspects of the issue is available. The topic of women is thus firmly established on the international human rights agenda.

As the First Review Conference of the 1980 Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) closed in Geneva on 3 May 1996, there was widespread dismay at the failure of the States Parties to reach consensus on effective ways to combat the global scourge of landmines. The CCW Protocol II as amended on 3 May 1996 (Protocol II as amended) introduced a number of changes that were widely welcomed, but it fell far short of totally prohibiting these weapons, a move already supported by more than 40 States. Keen to sustain the international momentum that might otherwise have slackened, the Canadian delegation announced that Canada would host a meeting of pro-ban States later in the year to develop a strategy to move the international community towards a global ban on anti-personnel mines.

The use of “drones” has grown exponentially over the past decade, giving rise to a host of legal and other issues. Internationally, it is the utilization of armed drones by States for the extraterritorial targeting of persons that has generated significant debate. This article attempts to outline some aspects of the relevant legal framework, with a focus on the international law applicable to drone strikes in situations of armed conflict. It briefly addresses the jus ad bellum and then centres on the jus in bello, addressing, in turn, questions related to when there is an armed conflict, what the rules on targeting are, who may be targeted and where persons may be targeted.

This article looks at the legal position of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on situations in which a State, a coalition of States or an international or regional organization intervenes in a pre-existing armed conflict, either giving support to one of the parties or exercising control over a non-State armed group party to the armed conflict (hereafter “non-State party”). For the purposes of this article, foreign intervention is considered to be a form of “co-belligerency” of such a degree that it makes the intervening power a party to the armed conflict. Situations in which there is no objective link between the foreign intervention in the territory of a third State and a pre-existing armed conflict in that same territory are therefore excluded from the scope of this article.

The aim of this article is to describe how the ICRC determines the applicability of international humanitarian law to such situations, based on the existing law and an approach that examines each bilateral relationship between belligerents separately.

The article also explains why the ICRC abandons the use of the term “internationalized internal armed conflict”, which is misleading in that it suggests that only the law of international armed conflict applies. The ICRC is therefore using new terminology for the legal classification of such situations; this change is intended to align the terminology used with the realities of the applicable law.

The Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 provide that medical personnel and equipment shall in general be identified by the distinctive emblem of the red cross or red crescent. The Second Geneva Convention, applicable to the victims of conflict at sea, specifies that the exterior surfaces of hospital ships and smaller craft used for medical purposes shall be white and recommends that the parties to the conflict use “the most modern methods” to facilitate identification of medical transports at sea (Art. 43).

In today's armed conflicts and complex emergencies more civilians suffer than combatants. After the Cold War one could identify a zone of turmoil in which civilian suffering was acute. But one could also identify a zone of stability from which operated a complicated system of humanitarian assistance designed to respond to civilian suffering. Media coverage emphasized the suffering, but never before in world history had such a kaleidoscope of humanitarian actors tried to provide emergency relief during armed conflicts and complex emergencies. Inevitably calls were heard for better organization and coordination, and in 1991–92 the United Nations created a Department of Humanitarian Affairs (DHA).

Nuclear weapons raise fundamental questions which go to the very heart of international humanitarian law and of Red Cross assistance activities. Sixty years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the author describes the attempts of the International Committee of the Red Cross to deal with these weapons.

Key issues raised by the use and operation of private military and security companies, particularly in conflict areas, are their accountability and how to control them. National regulation, however, is still rare. States have a role to play first as contractors. Considered selection, contracting and oversight procedures and standards may help promote respect for human rights and international humanitarian law by companies and their staff. Secondly, territorial and exporting states may consider adopting regulations to increase control and promote accountability. In view of this still largely unregulated phenomenon, this contribution considers elements of contracting and regulatory options.

The ensuing article is based upon a lecture, the last of a series of three, delivered at the Graduate Institute of International Studies, in Geneva, in October and November of 1963. The author would like to take this opportunity to express his grateful thanks to Mr. Jacques Freymond the Director of the Institute, at whose invitation the lectures were delivered, and by whose kind permission the following article is published in this Review.

The three lectures were devoted to the general theme of Christianity and war. More specifically, they endeavoured to deal with the contribution rendered by Christian ideals and thinking to the rudimentary development of the Law of War at a time when theology, morals, and law were not severable. It is from this rich amalgam that Public International Law in general, and the Law of War in particular, emerged as an integral part of the Christian civilization of Western Europe. The subsequent movement whereby International Law reached out from Europe to become more truly universal is still in progress today.

While States ever more ardently defend their sovereignty, which does little to improve international cooperation, and as the application of humanitarian law in armed conflicts declines, men of good will throughout the world are doing their utmost to reverse these trends. The century now drawing to a close has witnessed a plethora of private initiatives taken in an effort to temper reasons of State by more humane considerations. Many non-governmental organizations, some symbolically styling themselves “without borders”, have taken over where governments can no longer cope, organizing relief, combating drought, preserving the environment or improving sanitary conditions. These voluntary organizations whose vocation is to serve mankind are without question pursuing humanitarian aims as defined in the first Red Cross principle, which is “to prevent and alleviate human suffering wherever it may be found”, and whose “purpose is to protect life and health and to ensure respect for the human being”. Emergency medical assistance organizations, stating that they wish to remain independent of the powers that be, demanding freedom of action to help all victims and encouraged by the example set by Henry Dunant and the ICRC, do not hesitate to claim that their activities fall within the terms of an as yet unwritten body of law entitling them to bring assistance to needy civilian communities, even against the will of the government. Indeed, they believe that receiving proper care is one of the basic human rights of the individual, wheresoever and whosoever he may be. Such basic rights know no national boundary. While awaiting recognition of their activities, the duty to intervene is created by moral considerations.

Les questions que le Mouvement international de la Croix-Rouge et du Croissant-Rouge se pose aujourd'hui sur le sens de son action ne diffèrent pas de celles qui sont à l'origine du Mouvement: comment aider le mieux possible? Comment secourir dans l'immédiat et protéger dans la durée? Pour répondre à ces questions, il faut remonter aux premières années du Mouvement.

The 1949 Geneva Conventions and their 1977 Additional Protocols require States Parties to disseminate the content of these humanitarian treaties as widely as possible in their respective countries. Of course, their inclusion in military instruction is indispensable to ensure their implementation in time of armed conflict. But it is equally important to promote knowledge of humanitarian law among those whom it is intended to protect — the civilian population — as well as among those who have to apply it — public officials of various ministries. At the same time, political leaders and decision-makers must also be familiar with that law, so that they are aware of its relevance, realism and mode of operation if and when a conflict should break out. Therefore, to ensure respect for it — and also to promote its development — it is an essential task to include international humanitarian law in higher education. The ICRC has taken a number of steps to achieve just that in the South Asian region.

It is uncertain who will assist the victims of use of nuclear, radiological, biological or chemical weapons if an international response is required, and how this assistance can be provided without undue risk to those providing it. The use of such weapons or any other release of the materials of which they are composed cannot be considered as presenting a uniform risk. There are a variety of risks, each with its own implications for getting help to the people affected and for the health and security of those bringing that help. The political implications are serious and complex. This brief review shows the difficulties inherent in assisting the victims or potential victims of use of nuclear, radiological, biological and chemical weapons.

Video games are influencing users' perceptions about what soldiers are permitted to do during war. They may also be influencing the way combatants actually behave during today's armed conflicts. While highly entertaining escapism for millions of players, some video games create the impression that prohibited acts, such as torture and extrajudicial killing are standard behaviour. The authors argue that further integration of international humanitarian law (IHL) can improve knowledge of the rules of war among millions of players, including aspiring recruits and deployed soldiers. This, in turn, offers the promise of greater respect for IHL on tomorrow's battlefields.

The ethical and legal problems raised by war loom large in the thinking of the theologians and jurists of Spain's Golden Age. In their reflections and pronouncements on these problems, however, they were not starting from nothing. They had before them a large body of teachings, mostly dating from the Middle Ages. An accurate assessment of their role in this field must therefore begin by recalling those mediaeval teachings on war. We shall thus start with an outline of those teachings, before moving on to consider how they were assimilated and modified by the Spanish authors of the sixteenth century.