New Report - Domestic Normative Frameworks for the Protection of Health Care

Brussels (ICRC) - The ICRC has released a new report, part of its Health Care in Danger campaign, with recommendations for states on implementing rules of international law that protect the provision of health care during conflicts and other emergencies.

Violence against patients and health-care workers is one of the most crucial yet overlooked humanitarian issues today. On 30 March alone, in three unconnected events, Red Cross and Red Crescent workers were killed while performing their duties in Yemen, Mali and Syria. The Health Care in Danger campaign is a global Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement initiative, launched in 2011, to raise awareness and promote safe access to health care.

A series of workshops have been organized in different countries in 2012-2014 in an effort to mobilize the components of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement as well as politicians, governments, the military, humanitarian organizations, the medical community and academia.

The new publication "Domestic Normative Framework for the Protection of Health Care" seeks to contribute to this effort with a number of recommendations for States – national legislative measures and procedures in particular – to help them implement those rules of international human rights law and international humanitarian law that protect the provision of health care during armed conflicts and other emergencies. The publication grew out of the Health Care in Danger workshop organised in Brussels in 2014 by the International Committee of the Red Cross, the Belgian Interministerial Commission for Humanitarian Law and the Belgian Red Cross.

Concretely, the publication focuses on:

- improving legal protection for patients and health personnel and facilities
- ensuring proper use of the distinctive Red Cross and Red Crescent emblems
- providing legal protection for safeguarding medical ethics and confidentiality
- dealing effectively with violations of the rules protecting the provision of health care.

The publication can be downloaded here.

For more information or to receive a paper of the copy of the publication, contact:
Alexander De Jaeger, ICRC Brussels (tel.: +32 2 286 5870, adejaeger@icrc.org).

More information on the Health Care in Danger campaign can be found here.