Amidst the violent upheavals of the end of empire and the Cold War, international organizations developed a basic framework for holding State and non-State armed groups to account for their actions when taking prisoners. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) placed itself at the very centre of these developments, making detention visiting a cornerstone of its work. Nowhere was this growing preoccupation with the problem of protecting detainees more evident than apartheid South Africa, where the ICRC undertook more detention visits than in almost any other African country. During these visits the ICRC was drawn into an internationalized human rights dispute that severely tested its leadership and demonstrated the troubled rapport between humanitarianism and human rights. The problems seen in apartheid South Africa reflect today's dilemmas of how to protect political detainees in situations of extreme violence. We can look to the past to find solutions for today's political detainees − or “security detainees” as they are now more commonly called.

L'action de la Croix-Rouge en faveur des réfugiés est ancienne. Elle remonte en fait à l'origine de l'action du Mouvement international de la Croix-Rouge et du Croissant-Rouge en faveur des victimes des guerres, des révolutions et des troubles. On peut dire également qu'elle mobilise toutes les institutions du Mouvement qui interviennent chacune à l'une ou l'autre étape du parcours des réfugiés, des déportés et des personnes déplacées à l'intérieur de leur pays: protection dans le pays d'origine au moment de l'exil, accueil dans les camps de transit ou de premier asile, secours matériel et médical, recherche et réunion de families, sans oublier le soutien à ceux qui sont engagés dans les procédures, souvent interminables et humiliantes, de requêtes d'asile.

The two International Criminal Tribunals set up by the United Nations Security Council in 19931 and 19942 are in the process of demonstrating that international repression of serious violations of international humanitarian law is no longer a purely theoretical concept. A total of 21 persons charged with or suspected of committing such breaches have been transferred to the seat of the Arusha Tribunal, and two judgments sentencing the defendants to prison terms have been handed down by the Hague Tribunal. The two Tribunals are competent to hear cases against persons allegedly responsible for serious violations of humanitarian law, but in so doing they are also required, under their respective Statutes, to ensure that the internationally recognized rules relating to the rights of the accused are fully respected at all stages of the proceedings. Article 20 of the Statute of the Tribunal for Rwanda and Article 21 of that of the Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, modelled on Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, enumerate in detail the rights that must be accorded to every accused person.

We have the honour to inform you of the official recognition, on May 4, 1961, of the Nigerian Red Cross Society by the International Committee of the Red Cross.

At the heart of human rights work is the attempt to protect individuals from the abuse of power or neglect on the part of their own governments. At the international level, this translates into State responsibility for the way in which the government treats its own people, supplementing the older international law regarding the treatment of aliens and the law of war which also (originally) addressed only the treatment of non-nationals.

Dans la nuit du 1er novembre 1954, une série d'attentats secouaient trente localités différentes en Algérie, tandis qu'un communiqué du Front de Libération nationale (FLN) révélait l'existence d'une organisation de lutte armée capable de mener des actions coordonnées sur l'ensemble du territoire algérien. Cette «nuit de la Toussaint» allait marquer le début de huit années de luttes fratricides qui devaient conduire à l'indépendance de l'Algérie.

Dans sa dernière contribution académique à une matière dont il était un expert reconnu, Konstantin Obradović examine la crise du Kosovo sous l'angle du droit international humanitaire. Se référant d'abord à la situation au Kosovo avant le début des opérations militaires de l'OTAN contre la République fédérate Ae Yugoslavie, il conclut quʼil sʼest agi d'un conflit armé non international au sens du droit humanitaire et non seulement de troubles qui relèvent uniquement du droit interne. L'intervention des forces de l'OTAN en a changé le caractère juridique, et le droit international relatif aux conflits internationaux est devenu applicable. Différents incidents survenus pendant ces opérations sont examinés à la lumière des Conventions de Genève et de ses Protocoles additionnels. L'auteur conclut avec un appel à mieux faire usage des procédures internationales de contrôle de la mise en œuvre du droit international humanitaire.

Cette article a paru d'abord en serbocroate dans Medunarodni Problemi/International Problems, Vol. LI, No. 3–4/1999, pp. 256–294, publie par l'Institut de politique et d'économie internationales, Belgrade. Traduction en anglais par le CICR.

James Surget made no impact on history. He did, however, make an impression on Washington Ford. The latter sued him in 1866 regarding the destruction of 200 bales of cotton.

In May 1862, Ford owned a plantation in Mississippi, a state then in rebellion against United States authority. The local commander of rebelling forces ordered his troops to burn all cotton along the Mississippi River that was vulnerable to capture by the United States army. Surget assisted in the destruction of Ford's cotton. Ford sued him to recover for its value.

Les quatre Conventions de Genève de 1949 contiennent l'article commun, article 3, suivant :

«En cas de conflit armé ne présentant pas un caractère international et surgissant sur le territoire de l'une des Hautes Parties contractantes, chacune des Parties au conflit sera tenue d'appliquer au moins les dispositions suivantes:

Les personnes qui ne participent pas directement aux hostilités, y compris les membres de forces armées qui ont déposé les armes et les personnes qui ont été mises hors de combat par maladie, blessure, détention, ou pour toute autre cause, seront, en toutes circonstances, traitées avec humanité, sans aucune distinction de caractère défavorable basée sur la race, la couleur, la religion ou la croyance, le sexe, la naissance ou la fortune, ou tout autre critère analogue.

Legislating for international courts and tribunals is a delicate and complex process, which sometimes results in unintended consequences. Arguably, the inclusion of a special intent requirement, also known as dolus specialis, concerning “private or personal use” in the definition of pillage under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court is one such consequence. But this is not the only reason why the war crime of pillage deserves special attention. On closer examination, other questions arise concerning its interpretation and application. What is the meaning of “military necessity” and “necessity” in relation to pillage, and how do they correlate with the special intent requirement? To answer these questions, the article examines the drafting history, law and current practice relating to the crime's ambiguous new element. It then proposes several avenues to address the recurring uncertainty regarding its meaning: conservative, radical and pragmatic.

This is the fifth report on international humanitarian law (IHL) and the challenges of contemporary armed conflicts prepared by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) for the International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent (International Conference). Similar reports were submitted to the International Conferences held in 2003, 2007, 2011 and 2015. The aim of all these reports is to provide an overview of some of the challenges posed by contemporary armed conflicts for IHL; generate broader reflection on those challenges; and outline current or prospective ICRC action, positions, and areas of interest.

Military technology has developed rapidly in recent years, and this development challenges existing norms. It has produced countless debates about the application of international humanitarian law (IHL) to areas of war and technology including cyber military operations, military artificial intelligence (including autonomous weapons), the use of drones, and military human enhancement. Despite these rapid progressions, the prospect of creating new treaties to specifically regulate their use by militaries and in armed conflicts is very low. This is largely due to the unequal allocation of military technology among States and the differing interests that result from this inequality. The absence of formal regulation means that State and non-State actors are increasingly embracing informal means of law-making. This is similar to other areas of IHL, such as the regulation of asymmetric conflicts, where norms are contested. In such cases, State and non-State actors employ various informal law-making techniques to advance their normative positions through treaty interpretation and the identification of customary international law.

However, the discussion on military technology differs from other contemporary IHL debates. First, due to the rapid development of such technology and uncertainty about how it will be employed in practice, the interests of the various actors are less clear. Second, there are significant challenges in obtaining accurate information about new military technologies. This makes even the informal law-making path in the context of new technologies more challenging.

This paper explores the dynamics of contemporary international law-making as it relates to the regulation of new military technologies. It identifies the main techniques that are used by the relevant actors and explores the common themes among the various debates over military technology, as well as the potential specific challenges in relation to certain technologies.

Spreading knowledge of international humanitarian law at universities raises three questions which this text will attempt to answer. Firstly, why disseminate knowledge of international humanitarian law at universities? Secondly, towards which section of the university community should such an effort be directed? Thirdly, how should the subject be presented at law schools?