The Global Initiative to Galvanize Political Commitment to International Humanitarian Law was launched in September 2024 by Brazil, China, France, Jordan, Kazakhstan and South Africa, together with …
10-10-2025 Geneva (ICRC) –The Assembly, the governing body of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), announced today that it has elected Jürg Lauber as the ICRC's next vice-president. …
Climate change is an existential threat to humanity. Warming of the atmosphere, oceans and land – driven by human activity – is causing climate variations and extremes throughout the world. More than …
10-10-2025 The following is a statement attributable to the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Mirjana Spoljaric, on the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas. Geneva …
Delivered by Christopher Harland, Deputy Permanent Observer of the ICRC to the United Nations. Mr. Chair, Distinguished Delegates, Colleagues, The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) …
09-10-2025 Tashkent (ICRC) – The signature of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) by the Kyrgyz Republic on 26 September 2025 is an important step in reaffirming the country’s …
Chair, The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) unequivocally condemns all acts of terrorism, whether in times of armed conflict or not, and regardless of the perpetrators. Terrorism is …
The ongoing hostilities in Gaza, Israel and the Golan Heights have caused immense suffering. Civilians have been killed, injured, and taken hostage. Families have lost loved ones, homes, and access …
With the escalation of violence in Israel, and the occupied Palestinian territory of Gaza and West Bank, including East Jerusalem, there has been a proliferation of dehumanizing language and of false …
Families of hostages have lived through a nightmare. Children, spouses, siblings, and parents have all waited anxiously, every day, for the release of their loved ones, or at minimum for news of …
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Created in 1863, the ICRC library, alongside the ICRC archives, provides an indispensable documentary reference on the organization itself and international humanitarian law.
International humanitarian law is based on a number of treaties, in particular the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols, and a series of other instruments.
Customary international humanitarian law consists of rules that come from "a general practice accepted as law" and that exist independent of treaty law.
