La défense des enfants en temps de guerre est une préoccupation déjà ancienne de l'Union internationale de Protection de l'Enfance.

Certes, ainsi que la Croix-Rouge, l'Union approuve ce qui est réellement susceptible d'empěcher la guerre. C'est dans cet esprit qu'elle est intervenue, en 1932, à la Conférence du Désarmement et qu'elle a toujours saisi toute occasion de réaffirmer cette position de principe, en particulier lors de son Conseil général de 1952 (Zurich), qui exprima son horreur de l'éventualité de toute guerre.

La guerre mondiale, dans laquelle ont été entraînés les principaux Etats du monde, a eu, indépendamment de ses conséquences politiques et économiques, une profonde répercussion sur la vie sociale des peuples qui y ont participé. La guerre, par le nombre extraordinaire des victimes (tueés, mutilés, blessés, malades incurables, etc.,) a laissé chez ces peuples des traces que même plusieurs décades ne parviendront pas à faire disparaître. L'étude de l'étendue des pertes subies par les différents belligérants a une importance très grande au point de vue social et scientifique.

Le Comité international est une institution de Croix-Rouge; il prend part aux délibérations des Conférences internationales et des autres organes du Mouvement international de la Croix-Rouge et du Croissant-Rouge dont il est le fondateur, mais il peut également être le destinataire des normes adoptées par les organes de la Croix-Rouge internationale.

Quelle est la portée des règles et des résolutions adoptées par les organes du Mouvement vis-à-vis du CICR, des Sociétés nationales et de leur Fédération, d'une part, vis-à-vis des Etats parties aux Conventions de Genève, de l'autre? Telles sont les questions qu'il convient d'examiner dans le cadre d'une étude des sources formelles du régime applicable au Comité international dans le droit humanitaire contemporain.

ICRC Position Paper March 2021.

Academics rarely raise the need to consider persons with disabilities when preventing, investigating and prosecuting international humanitarian law (IHL) violations. Worse still, no actual attempts have been made to include a disability perspective into practical guidance and monitoring mechanisms. This article addresses that void by laying out how existing yet unutilized IHL obligations can be leveraged to repress and suppress disability-based IHL violations. In doing so, the article will detail how fact-finding approaches, criminal investigative processes and reporting methods for IHL violations can be inclusive of persons with disabilities and thus more appropriately address the endemic under-representation of a disability perspective in the planning and execution of military operations during armed conflict and the specific crimes they thereby suffer. Additionally, this article will articulate concrete changes that should be made to international criminal law procedures for prosecuting war crimes to provide recognition and accountability for disability-based IHL violations, as has been done for violations against women and children. Finally, this article will diagnose the state of the law to address any legal challenges or hurdles that may hamper the inclusion of a disability perspective in fulfilling the IHL obligation to reduce and address violations of humanitarian law.

Ms Fatima Gailani was appointed as the President of the Afghan Red Crescent Society in 2005. She was born in 1954 in Kabul and is the daughter of Pir Sayed Ahmed Gailani, the leader of the National Islamic Front of Afghanistan, who fought against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. She lived in exile during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and acted as spokesperson in London for the Afghan Mujahideen. After her return to Afghanistan she was chosen as a delegate to the Emergency Loya Jirga (Grand Council) of June 2002 and was appointed as a constitution-drafting and -ratifying commissioner. Ms Gailani is the author of two books (The Mosques of London and a biography of Mohammad Musa Shafiq).

On 29 June 2021, the Review talked to representatives of the French Ministry for the Armed Forces and Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs about France's involvement in Mali and the Sahel region.* From the Ministry for the Armed Forces, the Review spoke to Claire Legras, Director of Legal Affairs, Camille Faure, Deputy Director of Legal Affairs, and Philippe Lejeune, Head of the Operational Legal Unit of the Armed Forces Staff. From the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs, the interviewees were François Alabrune, Director of Legal Affairs, and Sandrine Barbier, Deputy Director of Legal Affairs.

The International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent (‘International Conference’) is one of the few international fora in which governments take part on an equal footing with other entities. The origins of the International Conference, and its capacity to adopt decisions that are binding on both National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and on governments in their dealings with National Societies as their auxiliary partners, give rise to special considerations concerning state participation. This article provides an overview of the models for participation in the assemblies of other international organizations, and how problematic cases have been dealt with in various fora. The authors then examine the participation of states and other political entities in the International Conference, as well as the controversial cases that have put the Conference to the test.

States must investigate possible violations of international humanitarian law in armed conflict, and many States use military procedures for all or part of the investigation process. Particular tensions can arise with regard to the perception of justice in the context of military judicial procedures, especially surrounding questions of independence and impartiality. This article lays out the international legal framework which should be used to solve these challenges, arguing that a State must address both the specificities of military institutions and the need for a perception of justice by the affected communities in considering the proper administration of justice in armed conflict.

The Review has chosen to open this issue with the voices of those who have suffered sexual violence and have been overcoming the multiple ensuing challenges. All have benefited from health care, psychological, psychosocial or material support and/or legal advice provided by the ICRC, the relevant National Red Cross Society or local partners – the non-governmental organization Profamilia in Colombia and the “maisons d’écoute” in the Kivus, the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The testimonies below reflect real, personal – sometimes very intimate – stories of persons who have agreed to share their experience, their trauma, the difficulties they and their loved ones have been facing, the way they have worked to overcome them, as well as their hopes for the future. In order to protect them and their relatives, their testimonies have been anonymized and references to specific locations deleted.

Le Comité international de la Croix-Rouge, dans un appel qu'il lançait aux nations en guerre, le 23 juillet 1916, au sujet des cruautés exercées sur les prisonniers à titre de représailles, exprimait d'un mot son principe essentiel: «La Croix-Rouge a été fondée en vue d'un but unique: l'humanité». Si l'on nous demandait de caractériser aussi le but du Bureau international pour la défense des indigènes, nous ne saurions mieux faire que de donner la même réponse. Néanmoins il semble que l'on puisse dire que si la Croix-Rouge est une œuvre d'humanité-charité, le Bureau international pour la défense des indigènes est une œuvre d'humanité-justice. En effet il s'agit, pour ce dernier, de rendre ou de faire rendre à une grande portion des habitants du globe ce dont ils ont été dépouillés.

This article poses the question as to whether and why States overlook the prosecution of people for war crimes rather than terrorist offences, where war crimes would be preferred. It looks at whether a diverse range of States (Afghanistan, Australia, Mali, the Netherlands and the Russian Federation) are able through their domestic legislation to prosecute people for war crimes or for terrorist offences. It considers what the value of prosecutions is theoretically and legally, and what the impact of prosecutions is practically in a State. It proposes that prosecutors, police and judges should ask the question whether an alleged offender should be prosecuted for war crimes and/or terrorist offences with war crimes being the preferred option where there is evidence that they have been committed.