Khaled Abu Awwad is the General Manager of the Israeli-Palestinian Bereaved Families Forum. Roni Hirshenson is the Forum's president and one of its founders. Established in 1995 with an Israeli office in Tel Aviv and a Palestinian office in A-Ram (north of Jerusalem), the Bereaved Families Forum is a grassroots organization of Palestinian and Israeli families who have lost family members to the violence in the region. These families have united in a joint mission to prevent further bereavement by working for peace and reconciliation. The Forum has received several international awards in recognition of its work, including the Eisenhower Medallion, the Three Cultures Award, the Solidar Silver Rose Award and the Common Ground Award. More information about the Forum is available at www.theparentscircle.com.

A sense of self-perceived collective victimhood emerges as a major theme in the ethos of conflict of societies involved in intractable conflict and is a fundamental part of the collective memory of the conflict. This sense is defined as a mindset shared by group members that results from a perceived intentional harm with severe consequences, inflicted on the collective by another group. This harm is viewed as undeserved, unjust and immoral, and one that the group could not prevent. The article analyses the nature of the self-perceived collective sense of victimhood in the conflict, its antecedents, the functions that it fulfils for the society and the consequences that result from this view.

The use of the term ‘victim’ as an identity can have different implications, depending on who is using it, claiming it, rejecting it or attributing it to others. Its negative connotations may have an impact on the person or persons concerned. This implies that the term should be used with some care and insight. The article analyses the use and function of the word ‘victim’ at different levels in the work and actions of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Noting the extent to which the term is or is not used with caution, it points to the evolution in awareness from a certain institutional discourse to the current careful wording displayed in research and publications. The article stresses the importance of aid workers being able to recognize the potential and active identity of a person beyond the institutional label as ‘victim’, as this constitutes an important step in respecting that person's human dignity.

This article presents an overview of the various mechanisms to improve the situation of people affected by armed conflict. Some are anchored in international humanitarian law, but numerous actors are increasingly contributing to its implementation outside the original framework established for that purpose. Human rights monitoring bodies, the diverse organs and agencies of the United Nations and regional organizations, and governmental and non-governmental organizations are seeking to address situations of armed conflict. However, humanitarian action unattached to any political agenda and combining protection and assistance is often the only remedy for the plight of the victims of armed conflicts.

The risks of the use of nuclear, radiological, biological or chemical (NRBC) weapons are heterogeneous. Each risk has its own implications for developing and deploying any capacity to assist victims of an NRBC event and, in parallel, for the health and security of the people bringing this assistance. At an international level, there are no plans for assisting the victims of an NRBC event which are both adequate and safe. Recognizing the realities of the contexts associated with each risk throws up numerous challenges; such recognition is also a prerequisite for addressing these challenges. The realities that have to be considered relate to:

1. 1. developing, acquiring, training for and planning an NRBC response capacity;

2. 2. deploying a response capacity in an NRBC event;

3. 3. the mandates and policies of international organizations pertaining to NRBC events.

The challenges that will pose the greatest difficulty for a humanitarian organization are those for which the solutions are ‘non-buyable’ and which involve making extremely difficult decisions. Attempting to assist victims of an NRBC event without a reality-based approach might generate ineffective and unacceptably dangerous situations for those involved.

International humanitarian law (IHL) contains various provisions pertaining to the dead in armed conflicts and their burial places. This article provides an overview of the various substantive obligations with regard to persons having lost their lives in armed conflicts and their gravesites. The temporal scope of application of these provisions – namely whether they apply in times of peace – will also be analysed. Finally, the reasons why IHL as in force today is applicable to questions concerning the dead and their gravesites will be considered.

In 2008, 260 humanitarian aid workers were killed or injured in violent attacks. Such attacks and other restrictions substantially limit the ability of humanitarian aid agencies to provide assistance to those in need, meaning that millions of people around the world are denied the basic food, water, shelter and sanitation necessary for survival. Using the humanitarian crises in Darfur and Somalia as examples, this paper considers the legal obligation of state and non-state actors to consent to and facilitate humanitarian assistance. It is shown that the Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols, as well as customary international law, require that states consent to and facilitate humanitarian assistance which is impartial in character and conducted without adverse distinction, where failure to do so may lead to starvation or otherwise threaten the survival of a civilian population. This paper considers whether this obligation has been further expanded by the development of customary international law in recent years, as well as by international human rights law, to the point that states now have an obligation to accept and to facilitate humanitarian assistance in both international and non-international armed conflicts, even where the denial of such assistance does not necessarily threaten the survival of a civilian population.

Humanitarian work, especially in conflict areas, has become more dangerous and every humanitarian organization is affected by serious security problems, constituting a threat to their staff and hampering much-needed activities on behalf of the victims of armed conflicts and other situations of collective armed violence. The article outlines the general approach of the ICRC to security issues and describes the pillars of the security policy it has adopted in the field to protect its operational staff.