Cet article se propose d'examiner les mandats qui sont exercés en matière de protection et d'assistance aux réfugiés dans les cas de conflits armés et de troubles intérieurs. Il essaie modestement d'établir des distinctions dans les rôles et les mandats des organes humanitaires, qui souvent se ressemblent et se recoupent, en particulier pour le Mouvement international de la Croix-Rouge et du Croissant-Rouge (le Mouvement) et le Haut Commissariat des Nations Unies pour les réfugiés (HCR). Il voudrait également redéfinir l'évolution de leur mandat et en déterminer l'extension. Les principes de l'action humanitaire, fondés sur la pratique passée et présente, ont certes besoin d'être clairement définis, mais il faut laisser jouer la souplesse et le pragmatisme là où n'existe aucun pronostic d'ensemble. La conclusion montrera l'intrdépendance et la complémentarité des organisations humanitaires qui ont à apporter protection et assistance dans les situations où aucun autre organe n'est en mesure d'agir.

In the Declaration of St. Petersburg of 1868 the signatory States recognized that the object of war is to weaken the enemy's military forces, for which it is sufficient to disable the greatest possible number of men, and that this object would be exceeded by the employment of arms which uselessly aggravate the sufferings of disabled men or render their death inevitable.

This principle was repeated in Article 23(e) of the Regulations annexed to The Hague Convention No. IV of 1907 concerning the laws and customs of war on land. That article forbids the employment of arms, projectiles or material calculated to cause unnecessary suffering. The authentic French text of the article referred to “des armes, des projectiles ou des matières propres à causer des maux superflus” whereas the English text of the same article referred to “arms, projectiles or material calculated to cause superfluous injury”.

In his book A Memory of Solferino, Henry Dunant vividly communicates his emotion to the reader when he describes the relentless development of the battle between the French and Sardinian armies and the Austrian forces. But he shows in the second part of the book the wide-spread feeling, in the face of so much misery, which stirred the people from Mantua to Milan and Turin during those June and July days of 1859.

A few hours before leaving for Sarajevo last May, Frédéric Maurice let us have the final pages of an article for the Review. He wanted to mull over his text and polish it, but fate decided otherwise, since he lost his life in tragic circumstances on 19 May 1992, on the outskirts of Sarajevo.

El Reino de los Países Bajos ratificó, el 26 de junio de 1987 (por el Reino en Europa, las Antillas neerlandesas y Aruba), los Protocolos adicionales a los Convenios de Ginebra del 12 de agosto de 1949 relativos a la protección de las víctimas de los conflictos armados internacionales (Protocolo I) y no internacionales (Protocolo II), aprobados en Ginebra, el 8 de junio de 1977.

Glancing through the 196 numbers of the Bulletin international des Sociétés de la Croix-Rouge certain major themes stand out significantly. Some of these were already described in its first issue of October 1869, then can be met with again throughout the years until this last number of October 1918 devoted almost entirely to wartime activities in 28 belligerent or neutral countries and to interventions on behalf of victims. The account which follows, however incomplete it may be, will at all events describe the successes, hopes and preoccupations of a decisive period in the history of our movement.

On 13 December 1985 the Eastern Republic of Uruguay deposited with the Swiss Government an instrument of accession to the Protocols additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 and relating to the protection of victims of international armed conflicts (Protocol I) and non-international armed conflicts (Protocol II), adopted in Geneva on 8 June 1977.

This paper focuses on the “continuous combat function” concept and proposes to extend its application. First, the article will demonstrate that the continuous combat function concept should be extended to certain members of organized armed groups in cases where those groups do not belong to any of the parties to an international armed conflict and whose actions do not reach the level of intensity required for a separate non-international armed conflict (NIAC) to exist. Secondly, the paper will look at the extension of this concept in order to determine individual membership in State armed forces in the context of a NIAC, while arguing that the notion of “armed forces” should be interpreted differently depending of the nature of the conflict, be it international or non-international.

In this opinion note, we explore ways to understand the contemporary encounters between a growing global counterterrorism architecture and impartial humanitarian activities while critically assessing our own role in shaping responses to those encounters. Humbled by a decade of experience in this area, we aim to explain how counterterrorism concerns have been elevated over the humanitarian imperative and to offer potential avenues to secure greater respect for impartial humanitarian activities.