International fora are an essential platform for the ICRC to facilitate its field operations, to defend and promote impartial, neutral, independent and strictly humanitarian action, and to guard against the use of humanitarian activities for military or political ends. Multilateral and bilateral contacts also aim to promote knowledge, understanding and – whenever appropriate – development of IHL, to share the ICRC’s position on issues of humanitarian concern and to raise awareness of the plight of those affected by armed conflicts and other situations of violence, including IDPs.

Statement by Jakob Kellenberger, President of the International Committee of the Red Cross, at the opening ceremony of the Dublin Diplomatic Conference on cluster munitions, 19 May 2008

Speech by Mr. Jakob Kellenberger, President of the ICRC, Official ceremony to mark the opening for signature of the International Convention for the Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearance, Paris - 6 February 2007

At the Stockholm International Forum, organized by the Swedish government on 26-28 January 2004, ICRC President Jakob Kellenberger highlighted lessons that had to be learned from horrors such as the Holocaust and Rwanda.