On 6 August 1945, a single atomic bomb turned Hiroshima into a scene of horrifying devastation. Eight decades later, over 12,000 nuclear weapons still exist. Eighty years ago, Hiroshima, and then …
Facts and figures from January to June 2025 In rural areas of the Philippines, armed conflicts and violent incidents have been decreasing in recent years. However, the humanitarian impacts of …
08-08-2025 Geneva (ICRC) – The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) welcomes the recent ceasefire announced by Thailand and Cambodia and reiterates its readiness to conduct further …
Staying Humanitarian in a World That Won’t Stand Still 2025 has been anything but predictable. Across the globe, conflicts are intensifying, and uncertainty has become the new normal. For …
Twenty-two months since the devastating violence on 07 October 2023, hostilities between Israel and Hamas and other armed groups in Gaza persist. The violence continues to exact an immense human …
The following is a statement attributable to Mirjana Spoljaric, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), to mark the 76th anniversary of the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 …
Home is where you feel safe. For many elderly and disabled people in remote villages of South Ossetia, their home is the only certainty they have. The armed conflicts in the 1990s and 2008 scarred …
The people of Afghanistan faced a grim humanitarian and economic crisis following the change of authorities in August 2021. Decades of past conflict, combined with sudden economic difficulties and …
Even during an armed conflict, the enemy must be treated humanely. Today, the rules of humane treatment of detainees are set out in international humanitarian law (IHL). However, long before these …
“Going beyond only providing short-term aid, our aim has been to help people shape their future,” says Harutyun Harutyunyan, a staff member of the ICRC’s economic security unit. Goris is more than …
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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.
