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A Special International Status for Civil Defence Personnel
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 January 2010
Abstract
If the humanitarian conventions accord special guarantees to medical personnel of the armed forces in the interest itself of its mission on behalf of wounded and sick military, why should we, members of civil defence, who carry out similar tasks for civilian victims of hostilities, not benefit as well from a privileged status and especially from a distinctive sign?
This is a wish often expressed by representatives of civil defence organizations, particularly when they are of a non-military character. This same question was thoroughly examined by a group of experts convened in June 1961 by the ICRC, and whose task it was to study the position of civil defence organizations in international law
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- International Review of the Red Cross (1961 - 1997) , Volume 2 , Issue 19 , October 1962 , pp. 519 - 543
- Copyright
- Copyright © International Committee of the Red Cross 1962
References
page 519 note 1 Working Party on the position of Civil Defence Organisations in International Law, Geneva, June 12–16, 1961 analytical report.
Type-written document D745 of May, 1962 in French, English, Spanish and German.
page 520 note 1 It should also be recalled that, in one of its resolutions, the Council of Delegates of the International Red Cross meeting at Prague in October 1961 voiced the wish “that the ICRC may actively continue its work in view of strengthening, within international humanitarian law, the immunity of nonmilitary Civil Defence bodies, in particular by means of the adoption of a standard distinctive sign”. (See International Review, 11 1961, p. 421).Google Scholar
page 523 note 1 A general debate also took place when question VI (special identification) was examined.
page 525 note 1 On this subject see also p. XXIII attached, legal advice which appeared in a Netherlands civil defence review.
page 526 note 1 The ICRC's views on this point, which are purely indicatory, were expressed in a recent consultation. See International Review, February 1962. p. 65.
page 526 note 2 See above-mentioned consultation.
page 528 note 1 On the exercising of the right of enlistment by the occupying Power and civil defence, see also Question III (3) below.
page 531 note 1 In connection with this point one can mention the question submitted to the Working Party by one of the experts, Mr. P. Lebrun. In his capacity as a member of the International Commission of Firemen, he asked whether fire brigades, in their activity on the communal level, also benefited under article 63, 2, should they be incorporated or not in a civil defence organizations. Several experts considered that by its general terms, the article also applied to this activity, on condition that it remained humanitarian in the sense of this provision and that these bodies were not militarized or charged with missions of a military nature.
The International Commission of Firemen, moreover, at its request last year received a detailed report from the ICRC, on the strengthening of the protection accorded by humanitarian law to fire brigades in the case of armed conflict.
page 539 note 1 In some of the replies received by the ICRC, it has sometimes been considered “unjust” that the civil defence medical services which perform the same tasks as the army medical services cannot benefit from displaying the red cross emblem. It is known, however, that the Fourth Geneva Convention limits the right to display this emblem to personnel attached to civilian hospitals or to medical convoys, as, more often than not, civil defence personnel is organized on a different footing. In its 425th circular, the ICRC prepared the adoption of a new emblem, the staff of Aesculapius, red on a white ground for civilian medical personnel which is not specifically protected by the Geneva Conventions.