Suchergebnisse

It is with misgivings that the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) viewed the establishment of the United Nations in 1945, considering it to be little more than the continuation of a victorious military alliance. However, the ICRC and the United Nations developed their cooperation over the course of different major crises: the first Israeli-Arab conflict (1948-49), the Hungarian revolution (1956), the civil war in Congo (1960) and the Cuban missile crisis (1962). This collaboration led to two important joint operations and to the ICRC being granted permanent observer status by the General Assembly in October 1990. This observer status has formed the cornerstone of the relationship between the ICRC and the United Nations over the last twenty years. Adapted from the source document.

This essay discusses whether international humanitarian law is concerned with the plight of refugees & internally displaced persons. Humanitarian law developed out of armed conflict between sovereign powers with equal rights, & therefore, appears to apply only to international armed conflict. However, certain provisions apply also in the case of civil war & are binding on both the state & the insurgent party. Even though the Geneva Conventions & their additional Protocols contain hardly any references to refugees or stateless persons, & none concerning internally displaced persons, these groups are protected by rules protecting the civilian population against the effects of hostilities. As states are not prepared to enter into the same commitments regarding internal conflicts, the rules applying to non-international armed conflict are far less comprehensive than those applicable to international conflict. Nevertheless, a special convention for the protection of internally displaced persons might weaken existing provisions as they are already protected by international humanitarian law. E. Sanchez

AbstractThe French government and an armed insurrectionary movement – the National Liberation Front (FLN) – confronted each other for over seven years in the Algerian War, which would become the archetype of wars of national liberation. It brought the new conditions of struggle in revolutionary warfare to a convulsive climax characterized by terrorist attacks, underground warfare, and repression. On the humanitarian front, the challenge of ensuring respect for humanitarian rules in asymmetric warfare was posed more bluntly than in any previous conflict. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) faced the triple challenge of offering its services to a government facing an armed insurgency that it claimed to be able to bring under control through police action alone, of entering into contact with a liberation movement, and of conducting a humanitarian action in the context of an insurrectionary war.