Roots of Behaviour in War: ICRC seeks researchers
What factors condition behaviour in armed conflict? What is the distance between knowing IHL and respecting it? What leads a combatant to comply with the law or not? Ten years after the publication …
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Australia: Challenges of principled humanitarian action
In November 2015, the ICRC and Deakin University gathered representatives from humanitarian organizations for a closed roundtable in Melbourne on the costs and challenges of adhering to the …
South Sudan: A hospital on the front line
The hospital in Kodok, South Sudan was caught in the crossfire of warring parties in July 2015. Two people died and the hospital staff were forced to flee the area. Eleven patients died in subsequent …
Nagorno-Karabakh: Families of missing persons have the right to know
Now that her parents have died, leaving her alone, this woman speaks of her missing brother with more despair than ever. CC BY-NC-ND / ICRC / M. Kokic A relative of a missing person learns to weave …
Libya: Struggle to survive as services collapse
With no end in sight to the fighting in Libya, people are losing hope of ever returning to normal life. Many regions face regular power cuts, water cuts and fuel shortages, and it is becoming …
Nagorny Karabakh: ICRC submits updated list of missing persons
15-12-2015 More than 20 years after the ceasefire agreement, families still do not know what happened to relatives who went missing during the Nagorny Karabakh conflict. As part of efforts to find …
Loss, Resilience and Hope: Paintings by Donya Hafezi Haghani
Exhibited at the 32nd International Conference of the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement, now in the ICRC Restaurant ahead of International Migrants Day, for three days only Donya Hafezi Haghani works …
Brazil: Partnerships reduce impact of violence in Rio de Janeiro
Brazil's Mission to the UN and other international organizations in Geneva and the ICRC organized a side event entitled "Humanitarian Action in Peacetime: the ICRC's Rio Project" during the 32nd …
Philippines: Building back better in Zamboanga village
The residents in the small community of Layag-Layag in Zamboanga City have gone a long way in piecing their lives together after the heavy fighting 2 years ago. Their main source of income – seaweed …
Afghanistan: Detainees assisted as harsh winter arrives
Helmand provincial prison in Lashkar Gah, Afghanistan Trucks carrying humanitarian assistance items are offloaded with the help of detainees. During November, 1,000 detainees and 200 guards benefited …
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ICRC library
Created in 1863, the ICRC library, alongside the ICRC archives, provides an indispensable documentary reference on the organization itself and international humanitarian law.
IHL treaties
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 IHL
Customary international humanitarian law consists of rules that come from "a general practice accepted as law" and that exist independent of treaty law.