Examining unintended consequences of the makings and processing of biometric data in counterterrorism and humanitarian contexts, this article introduces a two-fold framework through which it analyzes biometric data-makings and flows in Afghanistan and Somalia. It combines Tilley's notion of “living laboratory” and Larkin's notion of infrastructure into a framework that attends to the conditions under which biometric data is made and to subsequent flows of such data through data-sharing agreements or unplanned access. Exploring such unintended consequences, attention needs to be paid to the variety of actors using biometrics for different purposes yet with data flows across such differences. Accordingly, the article introduces the notion of digital intervention infrastructures, with biometric databases as one dimension.

The humanitarian mission maintains its ultimate objective of preventing and alleviating human suffering in situations of extreme crisis. In a different vein from the main subject of this edition- the future of humanitarian action – and using the power of images, Paul Bouvier, ICRC Senior Medical Advisor, brings us back exactly two centuries, to the ‘Peninsular War’ between French, Spanish and British, among the fiercest of the Napoleonic Wars.

The artist Francisco de Goya produced a series of etched plates known as The Disasters of War, which offered a hitherto uncommon view of war. By showing the horror and devastation of armed violence, the resulting dehumanization, and the distress and suffering of the victims, he denounced the consequences of war and famine and the ensuing political repression. Goya's lucid, compassionate, yet uncompromising depictions of war and its consequences are not only unique but also highly relevant today. His work is also an outcry and a plea for acts of humanity in the turmoil of armed violence, and anticipates the initiative that Henry Dunant would be prompted to take sixty years later, in Solferino. In a way, Goya announced Dunant.

Walking us through a selection of Goya's sketches, Paul Bouvier looks at victims, perpetrators, and eye-witnesses, and discusses how these images relate to the contemporary experience of humanitarian workers faced with the extreme violence of war. The author decrypts Goya’s sketches and relates them to the essence of humanitarian action as a response to human suffering.

While armed conflicts are principally governed by international humanitarian law (IHL), activities of members of non-State armed groups and their affiliates may also qualify as terrorist offences. After explaining why the concurrent application of IHL and criminal law instruments on terrorism causes friction, this article analyzes the chief mechanism for dissipating this friction: a clause excluding activities governed by IHL from the scope of criminal law instruments on terrorism. Such armed conflict exclusion clauses exist at the international, regional and national level. This article explains how an exclusion clause can best avoid friction between IHL and criminal law instruments on terrorism.

Commentaire de la Section VI, chapitre II — Représentants des prisonniers de guerre — de la Convention de Genève relative au traitement des prisonniers de guerre du 12 août 1949.

Au début de l'année 1918, alors que les dernières découvertes de la science et de la technique avaient perfectionné à l'extrême les engins de guerre et étendu au delà de toute prévision les possibilités de destruction, le Comité International de la Croix-Rouge lançait aux belligérants un appel où se trouvait le passage suivant:

«…Bien loin d'atténuer les maux qu'entraîne la guerre, on peut dire que les progrès de la science dans l'aéronautique, la balistique ou la chimie, n'ont fait qu'en aggraver les souffrances et surtout les étendre à toute la population en sorte que la guerre ne sera bientôt plus qu'une œuvre de destruction générale et sans merci.

As soon as the Red Cross was founded, the question of its relationship with war was raised. Indeed, it could be argued that placing the protection of war victims on an institutional basis and creating a reserved area off-limits to violence was tantamount to an official recognition of warfare or a tacit acceptance of the use of force. Some even wondered whether the attempt to regulate warfare without trying to eliminate it was not serving the purposes of the military and political leaders responsible for waging war, who would be able to invoke the notion of “clean warfare” to justify themselves in the eyes of public opinion and before history.

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 special significance of the red cross and red crescent emblems as internationally agreed symbols of protection and neutrality in armed conflict will be diluted if these emblems, or signs closely resembling them, are used randomly or for diffuse purposes in time of peace. In countries like the United Kingdom which for the most part have been spared armed conflict for the past 40 years, the red cross emblem has frequently become closely identified with first aid and with general health or medical care, its primary and unique meaning during armed conflict often being forgotten or unknown. For this reason it is perhaps particularly important for National Societies in such countries to help the authorities monitor unauthorised uses or misuses of the emblems, and the role of National Societies in this respect has been recognised under the 1986 International Statutes of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement (Article 3 [2] thereof). In addition, dissemination activities can help to enhance understanding of the purpose of the emblems. This short article will discuss practical aspects of the monitoring role of the British Red Cross Society.

This article analyzes the evolution in international law of the obligation to search for and return the remains of forcibly disappeared and missing persons. Receiving the remains of forcibly disappeared and missing persons is one of the primary needs of their families, who bring the issue to international courts and non-judicial mechanisms. This obligation has been incrementally recognized and developed by different human rights courts, which have included the obligation to search for and return the remains of disappeared persons in their remedies. In parallel to the development of the obligation by international courts, the international community has begun to become more involved in assisting in return of the remains of forcibly disappeared and missing persons to their families.

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.

Despite the general consistency in the treatment of international humanitarian law by international courts and tribunals, recent decisions have seen significant disagreement regarding the scope of indirect responsibility for individuals and States for the provision of aid or assistance to non-State actors that perpetrate war crimes. The divisions at the international criminal tribunals with regard to the “specific direction” element of aiding and abetting are reminiscent of the divergence between the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia on the question of State responsibility for supporting or assisting non-State actors that engage in violations of international law. This article analyzes this jurisprudence on individual and State responsibility for the provision of support to non-State actors that breach international humanitarian law, and considers the interaction and interrelationship between these related but distinct forms of responsibility.

The Henry Dunant Institute is inaugurating its collection of scientific works with an important book by F. Kalshoven which is reviewed in this issue. We are pleased to publish below a paper which this writer delivered at the International Congress on Humanitarian Law in San Remo last September. (Ed.)

“IHL takes a particular male perspective on armed conflict, as a norm against which to measure equality. In a world where women are not equals of men, and armed conflict impacts upon men and women in a fundamentally different way, a general category of rules that is not inclusive of the reality for women cannot respond to their situation.”

Plusieurs millions de personnes sont actuellement internées dans les camps de prisonniers de guerre ou de civils des différents pays belligérants. Le statut de cette « population » est-il régi par des règies de droit international uniformes et, si tel est le cas, comment et quand ces règies ont-elles été fixées? Bien que nous ne prétendions pas apporter ici des éléments d'information nouveaux, il nous paraît intéressant de retracer, pour les lecteurs de la Revue Internationale, l'évolution du droit international en ce qui concerne le statut du prisonnier de guerre et la situation juridique des civils, qui, ressortissant à un pays belligérant, se trouvent en territoire ennemi.

This article shows that between the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 and the Tehran conference in 1968, international human rights law and international humanitarian law and their respective guardian institutions, the United Nations (UN) and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), were not so conceptually far apart as is sometimes suggested. Its purpose is to give further legitimacy to the role of human rights law in armed conflict and show that cooperation between the UN and the ICRC has a long history.

Over the past forty years, there has been a steady rise in the expectation for companies to operate as responsible citizens. Today companies have at their disposal a variety of initiatives, and new levels of accountability have been reached with the advancement of international standards on, among others, corporate responsibility to respect human rights. Against this background, this article provides an overview of the most important guiding tools available on this subject and on how to promote peace and stability when operating in conflict-affected or high-risk areas. The article argues that ongoing stakeholder engagement is a key success factor in meeting the responsibility to respect human rights and that it has to be an integral part of a company's strategy, especially when operating in conflict-affected countries.

Continuous transformation of armed conflict since the adoption in 1864 of the first international humanitarian law treaty compels international humanitarian law to adapt accordingly. These adaptations, through either customary law or new multilateral treaties, always have been towards greater protection, greater reach. As for treaty practice, international humanitarian law historically has been substantially revised every twenty-five to thirty years. This article links those revisions to specific conflicts which laid bare deficiencies in the existing law. What follows is thus a chronicle of conflicts with their most critical humanitarian issues. From this emerges a picture of the changing face of armed conflict since the middle of the nineteenth century. The article also considers recent challenges to international humanitarian law and speculates on possible responses.

At its second session, which it held in Geneva in May 1972, the Conference of Government Experts on the Reaffirmation and Development of International Humanitarian Law Applicable in Armed Conflicts (Commission I) prepared draft articles on medical air transport and an annex relating to their signalling and identification, which were to be embodied in a future legal instrument. The Commission also recommended that a closer study be made of medical transport at sea and on land. If these suggestions were to lead to a draft instrument, it would be imperative to have a general plan which, in the case of signalling, would extend to all medical personnel and material, whether civilian or military.