The proper and dignified management of the dead is one of the three pillars of the humanitarian response to disasters, along with the rescue and care of survivors and the provision of essential services. First launched in 2006, the widely used publication Management of Dead Bodies after Disasters: A Field Manual for First Responders offers practical and easy-to-follow guidelines. It has become the go-to guide not only for non-experts confronted with dead bodies in the aftermath of a catastrophe, but also for those responsible for disaster planning and preparedness in countries with well-developed forensic services. Ten years after the publication of the 2006 Manual, a revised edition has been released. The inclusion of a decade of experience in its field implementation, as well as the incorporation of recent scientific developments in mass fatality management, makes the revised Manual an invaluable resource for first responders confronted with the realities of dead body management following a disaster.

The United States' foreign policy in the first decade of the twenty-first century and its involvement in armed conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have given rise to a reinvigorated interest in international humanitarian law (IHL), commonly referred to in the United States as the law of armed conflict. Conversations about whether to classify detainees as prisoners of war, debates about what constitutes torture, and numerous surveys attempting to measure the public's knowledge about and views on the rules of war are offering an opportunity to examine Americans' views on IHL. This article will reflect on those views, providing numerous examples to illustrate the complexities encountered when near universally accepted legal standards of conduct are layered upon the fluid and unpredictable realities of modern warfare. The article will also highlight the impact that battlefield activities can have on domestic debates over policy choices and national conscience.

Historical events since 1939 and the only partially completed codification of the law of air warfare have made it one of the most controversial areas of the law of war. Though Protocol I additional to the Geneva Conventions does contain provisions governing air warfare, it has not yet assumed its due significance owing to the hesitancy shown in ratifying it. All the more importance must therefore be attributed to the historical development of such rules.

Over thirty years ago the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) submitted a report on the reaffirmation and development of the laws and customs applicable in armed conflicts to the 21st International Conference of the Red Cross held in Istanbul. The purpose of that report was to identify legal issues that, in the ICRC's view, warranted a new effort to codify international humanitarian law (IHL). As is well known, almost a decade later, the texts of the two Protocols Additional to the Geneva Conventions were adopted and opened for signature and ratification. Additional Protocol I, among other things, codified rules on the conduct of hostilities, expanded the protection of certain categories of persons and included, among others, wars of national liberation within the scope of international armed conflict. Protocol II, although more ambitiously envisaged at the start, elaborated on the provisions of Article 3 common to the Geneva Conventions and laid down basic safeguards that must be applied in non-international armed conflicts.

Contemporary foreign fighters (FFs) often join so-called dual-nature groups, i.e. groups that can at the same time be qualified as a non-State armed group involved in a non-international armed conflict and a terrorist organization. Both international humanitarian law and counterterrorism (CT) legislation may hence be of relevance when assessing the legality of FF conduct. The CT perspective tends to remain predominant, however. This paper argues that, especially in terms of prosecution, due regard must be paid to both legal frameworks where possible. It also argues that national prosecution in the country of origin seems to offer the best prospects for realizing such cumulative prosecution.

The tragedy of internal strife affects a large and growing number of countries throughout the world. The situations in many of these countries have been studied by UN bodies, governmental agencies and non-governmental organizations and, of course, by the International Committee of the Red Cross. On the basis of their reports, it would be possible to describe the symptoms of internal strife specific to these particular countries. However, this paper focuses on the general features characteristic of internal strife, without reference to particular countries, since accounts of the situation in any specific country inevitably prompt debate over conflicting factual allegations. Such debate would deflect us from our tasks of developing and understanding of the nature of internal strife and suggesting the necessary remedies.

Concern about the effects of certain conventional weapons, particularly landmines, is not new. Had that concern been lacking, the 1980 Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) would not have been formulated. Nor would some of the earlier studies on the issue by UN bodies have been written. What is new is a heightened interest in the problems caused by landmines, particularly in post-conflict settings. Several factors have contributed to the increased recognition that even though the CCW is in place, it has not addressed the ever-worsening situation on the ground. (The United States army estimates that 400 million landmines have been sown since the beginning of the Second World War, including at least 65 million in the last 15 years.)

In the last thirty years, tens of thousands of Sri Lankans have experienced enforced disappearances of family members. In 2016, many members of such families came before the Consultation Task Force on Reconciliation Mechanisms, which was mandated to gather views on how people thought the transitional justice mechanisms should be designed, how they should be established and how they should function. This process allowed the families to share their experiences and to outline what they saw as important in shaping the transitional justice mechanisms. This article surveys the complex nature of their distress and psychosocial needs, as expressed by them during the consultations. It proposes that transitional justice mechanisms should be designed to protect their psychosocial well-being, address their complex psychosocial needs, and provide them with support and protection before, during and after their engagement in the mechanisms.

Professor Peter Wallensteen is the Dag Hammarskjöld Professor of Peaceand Conflict Research at Uppsala University, Sweden, and is also ResearchProfessor of Peace Studies at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International PeaceStudies, University of Notre Dame, USA. He is the director and founder of theUppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP), which since 1982 has recorded ongoingviolent conflicts and collected information on an expanding range of aspects ofarmed violence, including conflict dynamics and resolution. The UCDP data areone of the most widely-used data sources on global armed conflicts, and itsdefinition of armed conflict is becoming a standard in conflict studies. TheUCDP has made its findings available in an online database at www.ucdp.uu.se

The Islamic law on rebellion offers a comprehensive code for regulating the conduct of hostilities in non-international armed conflicts and thus it can be used as a model for improving the contemporary international legal regime. It not only provides an objective criterion for ascertaining existence of armed conflict but also recognizes the combatant status for rebels and the necessary corollaries of their de facto authority in the territory under their control. Thus it helps reduce the sufferings of civilians and ordinary citizens during rebellion and civil wars. At the same time, Islamic law asserts that the territory under the de facto control of the rebels is de jure part of the parent state. It therefore answers the worries of those who fear that the grant of combatant status to rebels might give legitimacy to their struggle.

A sharp debate has emerged about the importance of humanitarian organisations speaking out against misdeeds and, more generally, on the ethical and moral aspects of doing humanitarian work in the face of mass violence. That debate has pushed out of the spotlight a number of essential questions regarding the work of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) during the Second World War. The aim of this text is to scrutinize the ICRC's humanitarian operations for detainees of Nazi concentration camps during the final phase of the war in Europe. We look beyond the risks faced by ICRC delegates working in Germany to show how difficult the organisation found it to carry out a humanitarian operation for concentration-camp detainees in the very particular circumstances that prevailed in Europe at that time. The ICRC was an organisation designed to collect information on and to protect and assist prisoners of war, and its hastily mounted response is indicative of the strenuous task it faced in re-inventing itself during the final stages of the war and the minor role it was assigned in the occupation programmes imposed by the Allied forces.

Although the South African War was a colonial war, it aroused great interest abroad as a test of international morality. Both the Boer republics were signatories to the Geneva Convention of 1864, as was Britain, but the resources of these small countries were limited, for their populations were small and, before the discovery of gold in 1884, government revenues were trifling. It was some time before they could put even the most rudimentary organization in place. In Europe, public support from pro-Boers enabled National Red Cross Societies from such countries as the Netherlands, France, Germany, Russia and Belgium to send ambulances and medical aid to the Boers. The British military spurned such aid, but the tide of public opinion and the hospitals that the aid provided laid the foundations for similar voluntary aid in the First World War. Until the fall of Pretoria in June 1900, the war had taken the conventional course of pitched battles and sieges. Although the capitals of both the Boer republics had fallen to the British by June 1900, the Boer leaders decided to continue the conflict. The Boer military system, based on locally recruited, compulsory commando service, was ideally suited to guerrilla warfare, and it was another two years before the Boers finally surrendered. During this period of conflict, about 30,000 farms were burnt and the country was reduced to a wasteland. Women and children, black and white, were installed in camps which were initially ill-conceived and badly managed, giving rise to high mortality, especially of the children. As the scandal of the camps became known, European humanitarian aid shifted to the provision of comforts for women and children. While the more formal aid organizations, initiated by men, preferred to raise funds for post-war reconstruction, charitable relief for the camps was often provided by informal women's organizations. These ranged from church groups to personal friends of the Boers, to women who wished to be associated with the work of their menfolk.

The similarity between military occupation and certain operations by international organizations has been stressed by legal scholars. These operations involve the deployment of military forces on a given territory in an often politically and militarily highly unstable context. In the case of transitional international civilian administrations, the authorities thus installed are vested with extensive powers.

However, the formal applicability of the law of occupation to international operations is limited. Insofar as this set of rules is governed by the principle of maintaining the territorial and legislative status quo, it is ill-adapted to the needs of most such operations, which often are deployed to accompany or even bring about institutional change.

In providing for institutions destined to modify the law and institutional structure of certain regions to be put in place, the Security Council's intention was to create situations diverging from the law of occupation's material field of application and consequently requiring identification of a special set of rules. This legal regime should be based on the law of occupation at the start of such operations, and could then be progressively adjusted to meet the specific needs of populations under international administration.

In 2001 restoration of the ICRC's film archives covering the period 1920–1957 was completed. Nearly a hundred exceptional documents on the organization's activities were saved and made accessible to the public

This article relates the circumstances surrounding the ICRC's first steps in cinematography in the early 1920s. This innovative and promising medium was turned to good account to make known the ICRC's new assistance activities at the end of the First World War

The 26th International Conference of the Red Cross and the Red Crescent will take place in Geneva in December 1995. This Conference, which meets every few years, is unquestionably the most important forum for addressing humanitarian issues. It is also a source of cohesion between States and the various components of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, whose history since its inception has been closely linked with Geneva. The 26th International Conference should have been held in Budapest in 1991, but was unfortunately postponed owing to political problems. As a result, nine years have passed since the last Conference in 1986, which was also held in Geneva.

L'auteur présente et analyse les résultats des travaux de la Commission préparatoire de la Cour pénale internationale chargée d'élaborer les éléments des crimes de guerre qui compléteront les dispositions du Statut de Rome. Dans une première partie, il examine plusieurs questions à propos des relations existant entre la définition des différents crimes et les principes généraux de droit pénal. Il analyse ensuite les éléments des crimes dérivés des infractions graves aux Conventions de Genève et au Protocole additionnel I, et les violations de l'article 3 commun à ces Conventions. Il relève que la Commission préparatoire a été confrontée au défi de refléter corredement le droit international humanitaire existant. L'auteur conclut avec quelques réflexions sur la valeur des résultats obtenus.

This article analyses recurring misconceptions about the questioning of prisoners of war. The author takes a two fold approach, first considering matters relating to the identification of prisoners of war, namely contemporary issues such as the use of modern identification techniques, and then discussing interrogation procedures that go beyond the establishment of a prisoner's identity. In this context particular attention is given to the question whether and, if so, at which point in time a prisoner of war starts to benefit from fair trial rights, namely the right to remain silent, the right not to incriminate oneself and the corresponding right to be informed about these fair trial protections.