International Committee of the Red Cross
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Type | Private humanitarian organization |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1863 |
| Location | Geneva, Switzerland |
| Leaders | Jakob Kellenberger, President Angelo Gnaedinger, Director-General |
| Field | Humanitarianism |
| Purpose | Protection of war wounded, refugees, and prisoners. |
| Budget | CHF 822.8 million (2004)<ref>ICRC. 2005. ICRC 2004 Annual Report (Headquarters section). 35. </ref> 146.9m for headquarters 675.9m for field operations |
| Employees | 1,330 in field operations (2004)<ref>ICRC. 2005. ICRC 2004 Annual Report (Headquarters section). 32. </ref> |
| Website | www.icrc.org |
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is a private humanitarian institution based in Geneva, Switzerland. The ICRC has a unique authority based on the international humanitarian law of the Geneva Conventions to protect the victims of international and internal armed conflicts. Such victims include war wounded, prisoners, refugees, civilians, and other non-combatants.
The ICRC is part of the International Red Cross Movement along with the International Federation and 185 National Societies. It is the oldest and most honoured organization within the Movement and one of the most widely recognized organizations in the world, having won three Nobel Peace Prizes in 1917, 1944, and 1963. The history of the ICRC is closely intertwined with the Movement itself, so the history is covered together there.
Contents |
[edit] History
The history of the ICRC is closely intertwined with the history of the Movement as a whole. Within the Movement, the ICRC was the first organization to be created when five Genevans formed the "Committee of the Five" in 1863. Soon after its creation, the ICRC took on the task of developing rules for the treatment and protection of war victims, starting with the wounded by establishing the first Geneva Convention in 1864. Throughout the following years, the scope of these rules extended to shipwrecked sailors, prisoners of war, and civilians. They now comprise a total of four Geneva Conventions and three additional protocols, and are an important part of what is collectively known as international humanitarian law. Despite the fact that the ICRC was instrumental in developing the Geneva branch of the laws of war, it was not until the Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War in 1929 that the ICRC was explicitly named in IHL with the specific task of facilitating the exchange of information about prisoners of war. It was only with the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 that the ICRC finally received a broad and comprehensive mandate in international humanitarian law.
[edit] Characteristics
The original motto of the International Committee of the Red Cross was Inter Arma Caritas ("In War, Charity"). It has preserved this motto while other Red Cross organizations have adopted others. Due to Geneva's location in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, the ICRC usually acts under its French name Comité international de la Croix-Rouge (CICR). The official symbol of the ICRC is the Red Cross on white background with the words "COMITE INTERNATIONAL GENEVE" circling the cross.
[edit] Mission
The official mission of the ICRC as an impartial, neutral, and independent organization is "to protect the lives and dignity of victims of war and internal violence and to provide them with assistance." It also directs and coordinates international relief and works to promote and strengthen humanitarian law and universal humanitarian principles.<ref> ICRC. The Mission.. 7 May 2006.</ref> The core tasks of the Committee, which are derived from the Geneva Conventions and its own statutes ([1]), are the following:
- to monitor compliance of warring parties with the Geneva Conventions
- to organize nursing and care for those who are wounded on the battlefield
- to supervise the treatment of prisoners of war
- to help with the search for missing persons in an armed conflict (tracing service)
- to organize protection and care for civil populations
- to arbitrate between warring parties in an armed conflict
The ICRC drew up seven fundamental principles in 1965 that were adopted by the entire Red Cross Movement.<ref>David P Forsythe, The Humanitarians: The International Committee of the Red Cross, (Cambridge, NY:Cambridge University Press, 2005), 161.</ref> They are humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence, volunteerism, unity, and universality. <ref>ICRC. 1 Jan 1995. The Fundamental Principles</ref>
[edit] Legal status
Like the Holy See and the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order (Knights Hospitaller), the ICRC is a rare example of a non-governmental sovereign entity. It is the only institution explicitly named under International Humanitarian Law (IHL) as a controlling authority. The legal mandate of the ICRC stems from the four Geneva Conventions of 1949, as well as its own Statutes. The ICRC has expanded from its grounding in international law to undertake tasks that are not specifically mandated by law, such as visiting political prisoners outside of conflict and providing relief in natural disasters.
Contrary to popular belief, the ICRC is not a non-governmental organization in the most common sense of the term, nor is it an international organization. Because it limits its membership to Swiss nationals only, and because new members are selected by the Committee itself (a process called cooptation), it does not have a policy of open and unrestricted membership for individuals like other legally defined NGOs. The word "international" in its name does not refer to its membership but to the worldwide scope of its activities as defined by the Geneva Conventions. The ICRC has special privileges and legal immunities in many countries, based on national law in these countries or through agreements between the Committee and respective national governments.
According to Swiss law, the ICRC is defined as a private association. However, the ICRC has enjoyed de-facto sovereignty and immunity within the territory of Switzerland for many years. On March 19, 1993, a legal foundation for this status was created by a formal agreement between the Swiss government and the ICRC. This agreement protects the full sanctity of all ICRC property in Switzerland including its headquarters and archive, grants members and staff legal immunity, exempts the ICRC from all taxes and fees, guarantees the protected and duty-free transfer of goods, services, and money, provides the ICRC with secure communication privileges at the same level as foreign embassies, and simplifies Committee travel in and out of Switzerland.
[edit] Funding and financial matters
The 2005 budget of the ICRC amounts to about 970 million Swiss francs. All payments to the ICRC are voluntary and are received as donations based on two types of appeals issued by the Committee: an annual Headquarters Appeal to cover its internal costs and Emergency Appeals for its individual missions. The total budget for 2005 consists of about 819.7 million Swiss Francs (85% of the total) for field work and 152.1 million Swiss Francs (15%) for internal costs. In 2005, the budget for field work increased by 8.6% and the internal budget by 1.5% compared to 2004, primarily due to above-average increases in the number and scope of its missions in Africa.
Most of the ICRC's funding comes from Switzerland and the United States, with the other European states and the E.U. close behind. Together with Australia, Canada, Japan, and New Zealand, they contribute about 80-85% of the ICRC's budget. About 3% comes from private gifts, and the rest comes from national Red Cross societies. <ref>Forsythe, The Humanitarians, 233.</ref>
[edit] Responsibilities within the Movement
The ICRC is responsible for legally recognizing a relief society as an official national Red Cross or Red Crescent society and thus accepting it into the Movement. The exact rules for recognition are defined in the statutes of the Movement. After recognition by the ICRC, a national society is admitted as a member to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent societies. The ICRC and the Federation cooperate with the individual national societies in their international missions, especially with human, material, and financial resources and organizing on-site logistics. According the 1997 Seville Agreement, the ICRC is the lead Red Cross agency in conflicts while other organizations within the Movement take the lead in non-war situations. National societies will be given the lead especially when a conflict is happening within their own country.
[edit] Organization
The ICRC is headquartered in the Swiss city of Geneva and has external offices in about 80 countries. Of its 2,000 professional employees, roughly 800 work in its Geneva headquarters and 1,200 expatriates work in the field. About half of the field workers serve as delegates managing ICRC international missions while the other half are specialists like doctors, agronomists, engineers or interpreters. About 10,000 members of individual national societies work on-site, bringing the total staff under the authority of the ICRC to roughly 12,000.
The organizational structure of the ICRC is not well understood by outsiders. This is partly because of organizational secrecy, but also because the structure itself is highly mutable and has been prone to change. The Assembly and Presidency are two long-lasting institutions, but the Assembly Council and Directorate were created in the last few decades. Decisions are often made in a collective way, so authority and power relationships are not set in stone. Today, the leading organs are the Directorate and the Assembly.
[edit] Directorate
The Directorate is the executive body of the Committee. It attends to the daily management of the ICRC, whereas the Assembly sets policy. The Directorate consists of a Director-General and five directors in the areas of "Operations", "Human Resources", "Resources and Operational Support", "Communication", and "International Law and Cooperation within the Movement". The members of the Directorate are appointed by the Assembly to serve for four years. The Director-General has assumed more personal responsibility in recent years, much like a CEO, where he was formerly more of a first among equals at the Directorate. The current Director-General is nominally Angelo Gnaedinger, but Director of Operations Pierre Kraehenbuehl has assumed much of the responsibility since Gnaedinger became ill in 2004. <ref>Forsythe, The Humanitarians, 225.</ref>
[edit] Assembly
The Assembly (also called the Committee) convenes on a regular basis and is responsible for defining aims, guidelines, and strategies and for supervising the financial matters of the Committee. The Assembly has a membership of a maximum of 25 Swiss citizens. Members must speak the house language of French, but many also speak English and German as well. These Assembly members are co-opted for a period of four years, and there is no limit to the number of terms an individual member can serve. A three-quarters majority vote from all members is required for re-election after the third term, which acts as a motivation for members to remain active and productive.
In the early years, every Committee member was Genevan, Protestant, white, and male. The first woman, Renée-Marguerite Cramer, was co-opted in 1918. Since then, several women have attained the Vice Presidency, and the female proportion after the Cold War has been about 15%. The first non-Genevans were admitted in 1923, and one Jew has served in the Assembly. <ref>Forsythe, The Humanitarians, 203-6.</ref>
While the rest of the Red Cross Movement many be multi-national, the Committee believes that its mono-national nature is an asset because the nationality in question is Swiss. Thanks to permanent Swiss neutrality, conflicting parties can be sure that no one from "the enemy" will be setting policy in Geneva. <ref> Forsythe, The Humanitarians, 208.</ref> The Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 showed that even Red Cross actors (in this case National Societies) can be so bound by nationalism that they are unable to sustain neutral humanitarianism. <ref> Bugnion, La Protection, 1138-41.</ref>
[edit] Assembly Council
Furthermore, the Assembly elects a five-member Assembly Council that constitutes an especially active core of the Assembly. The Council meets at least ten times per year and has the authority to decide on behalf of the full Assembly in some matters. The Council is also responsible for organizing the Assembly meetings and for facilitating communication between the Assembly and the Directorate. The Assembly Council normally includes the president, vice president and three elected members. Currently both Jacques Forster and Olivier Vodoz<ref>ICRC. 9 Dec 2005. New ICRC vice-president.</ref> are vice presidents,<ref>ICRC. 1 Jan 2006. ICRC presidency.</ref> so there are only two other elected members.
[edit] The President
The Assembly also selects one individual to act as President of the ICRC. The president is both a member of the Assembly and leader of the ICRC, and he has always been included on the Council since its formation. The President automatically becomes a member of the aforementioned groups once he is appointed, but he does not necessarily come from within the ICRC organization. There is a strong faction within the Assembly that wants to reach outside the organization to select a president form the Swiss government or professional circles like the banking or medical fields.<ref>Forsythe, The Humanitarians, 211.</ref> In fact, the last three presidents were previously officials in the Swiss government. The president's influence and role is not well-defined, and changes depending upon the times and each president's personal style. Since 2000, the president of the ICRC has been Jakob Kellenberger, a reclusive man who rarely makes diplomatic appearances but who is skilled in personal negotiation and comfortable with the dynamics of the Assembly.<ref>Forsythe, The Humanitarians, 219.</ref>
The former presidents of the ICRC have been:
|
|
[edit] Staff
Image:Honneur à la Croix-Rouge-1915.JPG As the ICRC has grown and become more directly involved in conflicts, it has seen in increase in professional staff rather than volunteers over the years. The ICRC had only twelve employees in 1914 <ref>Philippe Ryfman, La question humanitaire (Paris:Ellipses, 1999), 38.</ref> and 1,900 in the Second World War complemented its 1,800 volunteers. <ref> Ryfman, La question humanitaire, 129.</ref> The number of paid staff dropped off after both wars, but has increased once again in the last few decades, averaging 500 field staff in the 1980s and over a thousand in the 1990s. Beginning in the 1970s, the ICRC became more systematic in training in order to develop a more professional staff. <ref> Georges Willemin and Roger Heacock, The International Committee of the Red Cross, (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1984).</ref> The ICRC is an attractive career for university graduates especially in Switzerland,<ref>"Le CICR manqué de bras," LM, 20 July 2002, 15</ref> but the workload as an ICRC employee is demanding. 15% of the staff leaves each year and 75% of employees stay less than three years. <ref>Forsythe, The Humanitarians, 231</ref> The ICRC staff is multi-national and averaged about 50% non-Swiss citizens in 2004.
[edit] Relationships within the Movement
By virtue of its age and place in international humanitarian law, the ICRC is the lead agency in the Red Cross Movement, but it has weathered some power struggles within the Movement. The ICRC has come into conflict with the Federation and certain national societies at various times. The American Red Cross threatened to supplant the ICRC with its creation of the Federation as "a real international Red Cross" after the First World War.<ref>Andre Durand, History of the International Committee of the Red Cross: From Sarajevo to Hiroshima, (Geneva:ICRC, 1984), 147.</ref> Elements of the Swedish Red Cross desired to supplant the Swiss authority of the ICRC after WW2. <ref>Forsythe, The Humanitarians, 52.</ref> Over time the Swedish sentiments subsided, and the Federation grew to work more harmoniously with the ICRC after years of organizational discord.<ref>Forsythe, The Humanitarians, 37</ref>. Currently, the Federation's Movement Cooperation division organizes interaction and cooperation with the ICRC.
In 1997, the ICRC and the Federation signed the Seville Agreement which further defined the responsibilities of both organizations within the movement. According to the Agreement, the Federation is the Lead Agency of the Movement in any emergency situation which does not take place as part of an armed conflict. True to form, the Federation began its largest mission to date after the tsunami disaster in South Asia in 2004.
[edit] Relationships within the World Order
Image:Friedensnobelpreis-1963.jpg The ICRC is one of the largest and most respected humanitarian and non-state actors in the international system. Its efforts have provided aid and protection to victims of armed struggle in numerous conflicts for over a century.
The ICRC prefers to engage states directly and privately to lobby for access to prisoners of war and improvement in their treatment. Its findings are not available to the general public but are shared only with the relevant government. This is in contrast to related organizations like Doctors Without Borders and Amnesty International who are more willing to expose abuses and apply public pressure to governments. The ICRC reasons that this approach allows it greater access and cooperation from governments in the long run.
When granted only partial access, the ICRC takes what it can get and keeps discreetly lobbying for greater access. In the era of apartheid South Africa, it was granted access to prisoners like Nelson Mandela serving sentences, but not to those under interrogation and awaiting trial. <ref>David P Forsythe, "Choices More Ethical Than Legal:The International Committee of the Red Cross and Human Rights," Ethics and International Affairs, 7 (1993): 139-140.</ref> After his release, Mandela publicly praised the Red Cross. <ref> Nelson Mandela, Speech before the British Red Cross, London, 10 July 2003. [2] </ref>
Some governments use the ICRC as a tool to promote their own ends. The presence of respectable aid organizations can make weak regimes appear more legitimate. Fiona Terry contends that "this is particularly true of ICRC, whose mandate, reputation, and discretion imbue its presence with a particularly affirming quality." <ref>Fiona Terry, Condemned to Repeat? The Paradox of Humanitarian Action, (London: Cornell University Press, 2002), 45. </ref> Recognizing this power, the ICRC can pressure weak governments to change their behavior by threatening to withdraw. As mentioned above, Nelson Mandela acknowledged that the ICRC compelled better treatment of prisoners <ref>Nelson Mandela, Interview on Larry King Live, 16 May 2000. [3]</ref> and had leverage over his South African captors because "avoiding international condemnation was the authorities' main goal." <ref>Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom (London: Little, Brown, 1994), 396.</ref>
[edit] References
<references/>
[edit] Bibliography
[edit] Books
- David P. Forsythe: Humanitarian Politics: The International Committee of the Red Cross. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore 1978, ISBN 0-8018-1983-0
- Henry Dunant: A Memory of Solferino. ICRC, Geneva 1986, ISBN 2-88145-006-7
- Hans Haug: Humanity for all: the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. Henry Dunant Institute, Geneva in association with Paul Haupt Publishers, Bern 1993, ISBN 3-258-04719-7
- Georges Willemin, Roger Heacock: International Organization and the Evolution of World Society. Volume 2: The International Committee of the Red Cross. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Boston 1984, ISBN 90-247-3064-3
- Pierre Boissier: History of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Volume I: From Solferino to Tsushima. Henry Dunant Institute, Geneva 1985, ISBN 2-88044-012-2
- André Durand: History of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Volume II: From Sarajevo to Hiroshima. Henry Dunant Institute, Geneva 1984, ISBN 2-88044-009-2
- International Committee of the Red Cross: Handbook of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. 13th edition, ICRC, Geneva 1994, ISBN 2-88145-074-1
- John F. Hutchinson: Champions of Charity: War and the Rise of the Red Cross. Westview Press, Boulder 1997, ISBN 0-8133-3367-9
- Caroline Moorehead: Dunant's dream: War, Switzerland and the history of the Red Cross. HarperCollins, London 1998, ISBN 0-00-255141-1 (Hardcover edition); HarperCollins, London 1999, ISBN 0-00-638883-3 (Paperback edition)
- François Bugnion: The International Committee of the Red Cross and the protection of war victims. ICRC & Macmillan (ref. 0503), Geneva 2003, ISBN 0-333-74771-2
- Angela Bennett: The Geneva Convention: The Hidden Origins of the Red Cross. Sutton Publishing, Gloucestershire 2005, ISBN 0-7509-4147-2
- David P. Forsythe: The Humanitarians. The International Committee of the Red Cross. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2005, ISBN 0-521-61281-0
[edit] Articles
- François Bugnion: The emblem of the Red Cross: a brief history. ICRC (ref. 0316), Geneva 1977
- Jean-Philippe Lavoyer, Louis Maresca: The Role of the ICRC in the Development of International Humanitarian Law. In: International Negotiation. 4(3)/1999. Brill Academic Publishers, p. 503-527, ISSN 1382-340X
- Neville Wylie: The Sound of Silence: The History of the International Committee of the Red Cross as Past and Present. In: Diplomacy and Statecraft. 13(4)/2002. Routledge/ Taylor & Francis, p. 186-204, ISSN 0959-2296
- David P. Forsythe: "The International Committee of the Red Cross and International Humanitarian Law." In: Humanitäres Völkerrecht - Informationsschriften. The Journal of International Law of Peace and Armed Conflict. 2/2003, German Red Cross and Institute for International Law of Peace and Armed Conflict, p. 64-77, ISSN 0937-5414
- François Bugnion: Towards a comprehensive Solution to the Question of the Emblem. Revised third edition. ICRC (ref. 0778), Geneva 2005
[edit] External links
ca:Comitè Internacional de la Creu Roja da:Den internationale Røde Kors Komité es:Comité Internacional de la Cruz Roja fr:Comité international de la Croix-Rouge ko:적십자국제위원회 it:Comitato Internazionale della Croce Rossa ja:赤十字国際委員会 no:Den internasjonale Røde Kors-komiteen vi:Ủy ban Chữ thập đỏ quốc tế
