The Protocols additional to the Geneva Conventions, adopted in 1977, broaden the protection afforded by international law to wounded, sick and shipwrecked members of armed forces and to medical personnel, medical units and military medical transports in certain circumstances. Their main purpose, however, is to extend to civilians, civilian medical personnel etc. the protection which hitherto was enjoyed only by military personnel. Thanks to the Additional Protocols, military personnel and civilians today enjoy equal protection.

Attacking from a distance is nothing new, but with the advent of certain new technologies, attacks can be undertaken in which the attacker remains very remote from the scene where force will be employed. This article analyses the legal issues raised by attacks employing, respectively, remotely piloted vehicles, autonomous attack technologies, and cyber capabilities. It considers targeting law principles and rules, including distinction, discrimination, proportionality, and the precautions rules, observes that they all apply to remote attack and proceeds to explore the challenges that arise from implementing the legal requirements. Due note is taken of states’ legal obligation to review new weapons, methods and means of warfare, an obligation that reinforces the view that existing law will provide the prism through which these new attack technologies must be evaluated by states. The article then discusses how notions of liability apply in relation to remote attack, and considers whether it is depersonalization rather than remoteness in attack that is the critical legal issue.

As international arms transfers, particularly of small arms, have become easier, the promotion of respect for international humanitarian law has become vastly more difficult. The proliferation of weapons in the hands of new and often undisciplined individuals or groups has outpaced efforts to ensure compliance with basic rules of warfare. The result is appalling levels of wanton violence and a stream of horrific images which threaten to immunize the public and decision-makers to ongoing violations of international humanitarian law. In the absence of vigorous action to restrain the availability of military style arms and ammunition, those responsible for training combatants in the laws of armed conflict have little hope of reaching all those capable of waging war. The price to be paid is high, in terms of human suffering, social and economic disruption and the burdens of intervention when the international community decides to act.

La clause de Martens fait partie du droit des conflits armés depuis sa première apparition dans le préambule de la Convention II de La Haye de 1899 concernant les lois et coutumes de la guerre sur terre:

«En attendant qu'un code plus complet des lois de la guerre puisse être édicté, les Hautes Parties contractantes jugent opportun de constater que, dans les cas non compris dans les dispositions réglementaires adoptées par elles, les populations et les belligérants restent sous la sauvegarde et sous l'empire des principes du droit des gens, tels qu'ils résultent des usages établis entre nations civilisées, des lois de l'humanité et des exigences de la conscience publique.»

Soon after the First World War the ICRC proposed that the Geneva Convention be revised on the basis of experience of that conflict. It had the question included on the agenda of the Tenth and Eleventh International Conferences of the Red Cross in Geneva, in 1921 and 1923.

International humanitarian law, whose purpose is to attenuate the evils of war, has been intimately bound from its earliest days to doctors and all others whose mission in life is to heal—the noblest of all professions. The fact is that this law originated from the need to make up for the deficiencies of military medical services and protect those wounded in war. Since then, the law has gone far beyond that framerwork and has extended its protection and solicitude to many other victims of conflicts and also, in peacetime, to victims of day-to-day life—sick people. An essentially medical element was the basis of the law, and continues to be a major element, referred to by some as “medical law”.

As one of the leaders of the Polish workers, Lech Walesa was detained several times during the 1970s. He led the shipyard strike and later negotiated the Gdansk agreement of 31 August 1980. In December 1981, Walesa, along with several thousand others, was arrested when General Jaruzelski imposed martial law and “suspended” the labour movement “Solidarnosc” (Solidarity). Walesa was interned in a country house in a remote part of Poland, close to the then Soviet border, and was visited three times by ICRC delegates. During this period, the ICRC visited 4,850 other internees (79 visits to 24 different places of detention) and it provided assistance and helped to restore contact between internees and their families abroad. At the same time and in conjunction with the Polish Red Cross and the League of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (as it was then known), the ICRC carried out an extensive assistance programme for the benefit of the civilian population which was in dire need of basic goods.

Les réserves aux accords multilatéraux ont fait, au cours des dernières anné, l'objet de nombreuses études théoriques. On se rappelle que les réserves exprimées par plusieurs Etats parties à la Convention sur le génocide ont été examinées par 1'Assemblée générale des Nations Unies, qui a demandé sur ce sujet un avis consultatif à la Cour internationale de Justice. De son côté, la Commission du droit international des Nations Unies a également étudié les problèmes soulevés par les réserves lorsqu'elle a abordé le droit des traités.

Notre propos n'est pas de nous immiscer dans ces discussions, si intéressantes soient-elles, mais d'exposer les différentes réserves exprimees au sujet des Conventions de Genàve et de déterminer le sens exact qu'il convient de leur attribuer.

In a sporadic way since 1919, then systematically from the late 1960s, the ICRC has endeavoured to carry out its humanitarian activities in situations of internal disturbances and tensions, in particular to give protection and assistance to persons imprisoned in such circumstances and commonly referred to as “political detainees”.

The ICRC's rules of conduct in such situations were presented at the Twenty-third International Conference of the Red Cross (Bucharest, 1977) as part of the document entitled “The ICRC, the League and the Report on the Re-appraisal of the Role of the Red Cross”.

This article discusses contentions voiced by ICRC President Maurer in a speech on ‘Challenges to humanitarian action in contemporary conflicts: Israel, the Middle East and beyond’, developed in the form of the article in this issue of the International Review of the Red Cross.

It discusses challenges to international humanitarian law in situations where one party violates humanitarian norms, and questions some ICRC contentions and assumptions regarding the status of the West Bank territories, the status of Israel-Palestinian agreements, the status of the Gaza Strip, the concept of ‘occupation’, Israel's settlement policy, Israel's separation barrier, East Jerusalem, and concludes with a discussion of ICRC policies of confidentiality, as opposed to public engagement.

La XX Conferencia Internacional de la Cruz Roja, celebrada en Viena el año 1965, proclamó los «principios fundamentales en los que está basada la acción de la Cruz Roja ». Desde entonces, en cada reunión de la Conferencia, la Cruz Roja escucha, en pie, su lectura solemne.

In the Sahel, host communities are among those most affected by recurrent internal displacement, but they are often ignored in responses to displacement. Furthermore, their situation has attracted little attention from researchers or other observers. The present article will argue that it is essential to provide these communities with adequate protection, especially as they play a leading role in providing humanitarian protection and assistance to internally displaced persons (IDPs). The article begins by examining the legal instruments that protect populations affected by forced displacement, in order to identify and present the legal protection they offer to IDP host communities. The article will then analyze and highlight the advantages of fully applying this protection. It will show that the recurrent violence and breaches of the law that these communities suffer are impeding the full realization of those advantages. Finally, the article shall propose solutions that would overcome the deficiencies noted and hence ensure enhanced protection for IDP host communities in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger.

Le 10 octobre 1980, la « Conférence des Nations Unies sur l'interdiction ou la limitation de l'emploi de certaines armes classiques qui peuvent être considérées comme produisant des effets traumatiques excessifs ou comme frappant sans discrimination » s'est terminée par l'adoption, par consensus, des instruments suivants:

— Convention sur l'interdiction ou la limitation de l'emploi de certaines armes classiques,

— Protocole concernant les éclats non localisables (Protocole I),

— Protocole sur l'interdiction ou la limitation de l'emploi de mines, pièges et autres dispositifs (Protocole II),

— Protocole sur l'interdiction ou la limitation de l'emploi des armes incendiaires (Protocole III).

In October and November 1979 many Khmers fled from their villages and sought refuge in camps in Thailand or along the Khmer-Thai border. The ICRC and other humanitarian organizations, international or private, had to provide for the needs of a sudden influx of people uprooted from their homes, exhausted by famine, suffering, fear, sickness and the ravages of war. The first priorities in such a situation are to supply the basic hygienic facilities, adequate food, water and shelter of some sort, all indispensable for survival. But disease and death are an ever-present threat and have to be resisted. This, then, was the task of the medical teams sent out by the ICRC and the National Societies of the Red Cross, and of many other groups belonging to other organizations who came to help the refugees. An overall coordination of the medical aid was indispensable; responsibility for this was assumed by the ICRC.

Si l'on en croit les estimations récentes, plus de deux millions de personnes ont sans doute succombé à la famine qui a ravagé la Corée du Nord en 1997 et 1998. En 1997, les Nations Unies ont estimé que 4,7 millions de Nord-Coréens risquaient de mourir de faim La communauté internationale s'est engagée à fournir une aide alimentaire pour faire face à la situation. La Fédération internationale des Sociétés de la Croix-Rouge et du Croissant-Rouge a lancé un appel de fonds élargi en juin 1997. En Janvier 1998, le Programme alimentaire mondial (PAM) a lancé le plus grand appel de son histoire, avec pour objectif de recueillir 380 millions de dollars en aide alimentaire, soit pratiquement le double du montant sollicité pour 1997. Pourtant, la communauté internationale s'est heurtée à une résistance lorsqu'elle a voulu aider les Nord-Coréens atteints de malnutrition et menacés par la famine.

Is remembrance an absolute moral duty or is it better thought of in more ethically constricted pragmatic and empirical terms? This essay argues that both individuals and societies should strive for remembrance where possible, but accept that there are times and places where more forgetting is the only safe choice to make. One may hope that at some point in the future the need to remember will sweep away a prudential decision to forget, but while we are within our moral rights to hope that, in a given case, forgetting itself will outlive its usefulness, conflating our wishes with teleological certainties is an exercise in hubris, not morality. But on no account should memory be thought of as a categorical imperative.

Afghanistan's current difficulties are in large measure the product of a troubled history and a troubled geographical location. These have combined to produce a debilitated state, open to meddling from a range of external powers, that has now experienced decades of trauma. The current insurgency that afflicts the country is sustained by the sanctuaries in Pakistan from which the Taliban operate. Unless and until there is progress on this front, the situation in Afghanistan will remain stalemated.

C'est précisément pour venir en aide aux militaires blessés qu'ont été constituées les premières Sociétés nationales de la Croix-Rouge, à l'initiative d'Henry Dunant et de ses collègues au sein de cette association privée genevoise qui allait plus tard prendre le nom de « Comité international de la Croix-Rouge ».