The Red Cross, after the
Battle of Gravelotte
in 1870
Henry Dunant
, author of
A Memory of Solferino
Until the middle of the nineteenth century, there were no organized or well-established army nursing systems for casualties, nor safe or protected institutions, to accommodate and treat those who were wounded on the battlefield. A devout
Calvinist
, the Swiss businessman
Jean-Henri Dunant
, traveled to Italy to meet then-French emperor
Napoleon III
in June 1859 with the intention of discussing difficulties in conducting business in
Algeria
, which at that time was occupied by
France
.
[2]
He arrived in the small town of
Solferino
on the evening of 24 June after the
Battle of Solferino
, an engagement in the
Austro-Sardinian War
. In a single day, about 40,000 soldiers on both sides died or were left wounded on the field. Dunant was shocked by the terrible aftermath of the battle, the suffering of the wounded soldiers, and the near-total lack of medical attendance and basic care. He completely abandoned the original intent of his trip and for several days he devoted himself to helping with the treatment and care for the wounded. He took point in organizing an overwhelming level of relief assistance with the local villagers to aid without discrimination.
Original document of the
First Geneva Convention
, 1864
Back at his home in
Geneva
, he decided to write a book entitled
A Memory of Solferino
, which he published using his own money in 1862. He sent copies of the book to leading political and military figures throughout Europe, and people he thought could help him make a change. His book included vivid descriptions of his experiences in Solferino in 1859, and he explicitly advocated the formation of national voluntary relief organizations to help nurse wounded soldiers in the case of war, inspired by Christian teaching regarding social responsibility and his experience after the battlefield of Solferino.
[3]
He called for the development of an international treaty to guarantee the protection of medics and field hospitals for soldiers wounded on the battlefield.
In 1863,
Gustave Moynier
, a Geneva lawyer and president of the Geneva Society for Public Welfare, received a copy of Dunant's book and introduced it for discussion at a meeting of that society. As a result of this initial discussion, the society established an investigatory commission to examine the feasibility of Dunant's suggestions and eventually to organize an international conference about their possible implementation. The members of this committee, which has subsequently been referred to as the "Committee of the Five", aside from Dunant and Moynier were physician
Louis Appia
, who had significant experience working as a field surgeon; Appia's friend and colleague
Theodore Maunoir
, from the Geneva Hygiene and Health Commission; and
Guillaume-Henri Dufour
, a
Swiss army
general of great renown. Eight days later, the five men decided to rename the committee to the "International Committee for Relief to the Wounded".
International conference
edit
From 26 to 29 October 1863,
the international conference organized by the committee was held in Geneva to develop possible measures to improve medical services on the battlefield. The conference was attended by 36 individuals: eighteen official delegates from national governments, six delegates from non-governmental organizations, seven non-official foreign delegates, and the five members of the International Committee. The states and kingdoms represented by official delegates were:
Austrian Empire
,
Grand Duchy of Baden
,
Kingdom of Bavaria
,
French Empire
,
Kingdom of Hanover
,
Grand Duchy of Hesse
,
Kingdom of Italy
,
Kingdom of the Netherlands
,
Kingdom of Prussia
,
Russian Empire
,
Kingdom of Saxony
,
Kingdom of Spain
,
United Kingdoms of Sweden and Norway
, and
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
.
"Committee of the Five": Gustave Moynier, Guillaume-Henri Dufour, Henry Dunant, Louis Appia, Theodore Maunoir
Among the proposals written in the final resolutions of the conference, adopted on 29 October 1863,
[6]
were:
- The foundation of national relief societies for wounded soldiers;
- Neutrality and protection for wounded soldiers;
- The utilization of volunteer forces for relief assistance on the battlefield;
- The organization of additional conferences to enact these concepts;
- The introduction of a common distinctive protection symbol for medical personnel in the field, namely a white armlet bearing a red cross.
Memorial commemorating the first use of the Red Cross symbol in an armed conflict during the
Battle of Dybbøl
(Denmark) in 1864; jointly erected in 1989 by the national Red Cross societies of Denmark and Germany
Geneva Convention, national societies, and ICRC
edit
Only a year later, the Swiss government invited the governments of all European countries, as well as the
United States
, the
Empire of Brazil
and the
Mexican Empire
to attend an official diplomatic conference. Sixteen countries sent a total of 26 delegates to Geneva. On 22 August 1864, the conference adopted the first
Geneva Convention
"for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded in Armies in the Field". Representatives of 12 states and kingdoms signed the convention:
[7]
The convention contained ten articles, establishing for the first time legally binding rules guaranteeing neutrality and protection for wounded soldiers, field medical personnel, and specific humanitarian institutions in an armed conflict.
Directly following the establishment of the Geneva Convention, the first national societies were founded in Belgium, Denmark, France,
Oldenburg
, Prussia, Spain, and Wurttemberg. Also in 1864,
Louis Appia
and
Charles van de Velde
, a captain of the
Dutch Army
, became the first independent and neutral delegates to work under the symbol of the Red Cross in an armed conflict.
The
Ottoman
government ratified this treaty on 5 July 1865. The
Turkish Red Crescent
organization was founded in the Ottoman Empire in 1868, partly in response to the experience of the
Crimean War
(1853?1856), in which disease overshadowed battle as the main cause of death and suffering among
Turkish
soldiers. It was the first Red Crescent society of its kind and one of the most important charity organizations in the
Muslim
world.
In 1867, the first International Conference of National Aid Societies for the Nursing of the War Wounded was convened.
Also in 1867, Jean-Henri Dunant was forced to declare
bankruptcy
due to business failures in
Algeria
, partly because he had neglected his business interests during his tireless activities for the International Committee.
[9]
The controversy surrounding Dunant's business dealings and the resulting negative public opinion, combined with an ongoing conflict with Gustave Moynier, led to Dunant's expulsion from his position as a member and secretary. He was charged with fraudulent bankruptcy and a warrant for his arrest was issued. Thus, he was forced to leave Geneva and never returned to his home city.
In the following years, national societies were founded in nearly every country in Europe. The project resonated well with patriotic sentiments that were on the rise in the late-nineteenth-century, and national societies were often encouraged as signifiers of national moral superiority.
In 1876, the committee adopted the name "International Committee of the Red Cross" (ICRC), which is still its official designation today. Five years later, the
American Red Cross
was founded through the efforts of
Clara Barton
.
[11]
More and more countries signed the Geneva Convention and began to respect it in practice during armed conflicts. In a rather short period of time, the Red Cross gained huge momentum as an internationally respected movement, and the national societies became increasingly popular as a venue for volunteer work.
When the first
Nobel Peace Prize
was awarded in 1901, the
Norwegian Nobel Committee
opted to give it jointly to Jean-Henri Dunant and
Frederic Passy
, a leading international
pacifist
. More significant than the honor of the prize itself, this prize marked the overdue rehabilitation of Jean-Henri Dunant and represented a tribute to his key role in the formation of the Red Cross. Dunant died nine years later in the small Swiss health resort of
Heiden
. Only two months earlier his long-standing adversary Gustave Moynier had also died, leaving a mark in the history of the committee as its longest-serving president ever.
G?tar? Mikami
's Red Cross flag with which in 1905 he prevented an attack by the Russian army
In 1906, the 1864 Geneva Convention was revised for the first time. One year later, the
Hague Convention X
, adopted at the Second International Peace Conference in
The Hague
, extended the scope of the Geneva Convention to naval warfare. Shortly before the beginning of the
First World War
in 1914, 50 years after the foundation of the ICRC and the adoption of the first Geneva Convention, there were already 45 national relief societies throughout the world. The movement had extended itself beyond Europe and North America to Central and South America (
Argentine Republic
, the
United States of Brazil
, the
Republic of Chile
, the
Republic of Cuba
, the
United Mexican States
, the
Republic of Peru
, the
Republic of El Salvador
, the
Oriental Republic of Uruguay
, the
United States of Venezuela
), Asia (the
Republic of China
, the
Empire of Japan
and the
Kingdom of Siam
), and Africa (
Union of South Africa
).
War 1914?1918. Geneva,
Rath Museum
. International Prisoners-of-War Agency. Researches department. German section. Express messages and communications to families.
With the outbreak of
World War I
, the ICRC found itself confronted with enormous challenges that it could handle only by working closely with the national Red Cross societies. Red Cross nurses from around the world, including the United States and Japan, came to support the medical services of the armed forces of the European countries involved in the war. On 15 August 1914, immediately after the start of the war, the ICRC set up its International Prisoners-of-War Agency (IPWA) to trace
POWs
and to re-establish communications with their respective families. The
Austrian
writer and pacifist
Stefan Zweig
described the situation at the Geneva headquarters of the ICRC:
Hardly had the first blows been struck when cries of anguish from all lands began to be heard in Switzerland. Thousands who were without news of fathers, husbands, and sons in the battlefields, stretched despairing arms into the void. By hundreds, by thousands, by tens of thousands, letters and telegrams poured into the little House of the Red Cross in Geneva, the only international rallying point that still remained. Isolated, like stormy
petrels
, came the first inquiries for missing relatives; then these inquiries themselves became a storm. The letters arrived in sackfuls. Nothing had been prepared for dealing with such an inundation of misery. The Red Cross had no space, no organization, no system, and above all no helpers.
Group picture of the volunteers ? mostly women ? in front of the Musee Rath in 1914
However, by the end of the year, the Agency already had some 1,200
volunteers
who worked in the
Musee Rath
of Geneva, amongst them the
French
writer and pacifist
Romain Rolland
. When he was awarded the
Nobel Prize for Literature
for 1915, he donated half of the
prize money
to the Agency.
Most of the staff were women,
some of whom?? like
Marguerite van Berchem
,
Marguerite Cramer
and
Suzanne Ferriere
?? served in high positions as pioneers of
gender equality
in an organisation dominated by men.
By the end of the war, the Agency had transferred about 20 million letters and messages, 1.9 million parcels, and about 18 million
Swiss francs
in monetary donations to POWs of all affected countries. Furthermore, due to the intervention of the Agency, about 200,000 prisoners were exchanged between the warring parties, released from captivity and returned to their home country. The organizational card index of the Agency accumulated about 7 million records from 1914 to 1923. The card index led to the identification of about 2 million POWs and the ability to contact their families. The complete index is on loan today from the ICRC to the
International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum
in Geneva. The right to access the index is still strictly restricted to the ICRC.
Red Cross ambulance from 1917
During the entire war, the ICRC monitored warring parties' compliance with the
Geneva Conventions
of the 1907 revision and forwarded complaints about violations to the respective country. When
chemical weapons
were used in this war for the first time in history, the ICRC mounted a vigorous protest against their use. Even without having a mandate from the Geneva Conventions, the ICRC tried to ameliorate the suffering of civil populations. In territories that were officially designated as "occupied territories", the ICRC could assist the civilian population on the basis of the
Hague Convention
's "Laws and Customs of War on Land" of 1907.
[14]
This convention was also the legal basis for the ICRC's work for prisoners of war. In addition to the work of the International Prisoner-of-War Agency as described above, this included inspection visits to POW camps. A total of 524 camps throughout Europe were visited by 41 delegates from the ICRC through the end of the war.
The MV
Red Cross
in New York harbour ca 1915
Red Cross nurses serving bread and coffee to American
doughboys
of the
16th Infantry
,
1st Division
, upon their arrival in Paris, July 4, 1917.
Between 1916 and 1918, the ICRC published a number of
postcards
with scenes from the POW camps. The pictures showed the prisoners in day-to-day activities such as the distribution of letters from home. The intention of the ICRC was to provide the families of the prisoners with some hope and solace and to alleviate their uncertainties about the fate of their loved ones. After the end of the war, between 1920 and 1922, the ICRC organized the return of about 500,000 prisoners to their home countries. In 1920, the task of repatriation was handed over to the newly founded
League of Nations
, which appointed the Norwegian diplomat and scientist
Fridtjof Nansen
as its "High Commissioner for Repatriation of the War Prisoners". His legal mandate was later extended to support and care for war refugees and displaced persons when his office became that of the League of Nations "High Commissioner for Refugees". Nansen, who invented the
Nansen passport
for stateless refugees and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1922, appointed two delegates from the ICRC as his deputies. A year before the end of the war, the ICRC received the 1917 Nobel Peace Prize for its outstanding wartime work. It was the only Nobel Peace Prize awarded in the period from 1914 to 1918. In 1923, the
International Committee of the Red Cross
adopted a change in its policy regarding the selection of new members. Until then, only citizens from the city of Geneva could serve in the committee. This limitation was expanded to include all Swiss citizens. As a direct consequence of World War I, a treaty was adopted in 1925 which outlawed the use of suffocating or poisonous gases and biological agents as weapons. Four years later, the original Convention was revised and the second Geneva Convention "relative to the Amelioration of the Condition of Wounded, Sick and Shipwrecked Members of Armed Forces at Sea" was established. The events of World War I and the respective activities of the ICRC significantly increased the reputation and authority of the Committee among the international community and led to an extension of its competencies.
As early as in 1934, a draft proposal for an additional convention for the protection of the civil population in occupied territories during an armed conflict was adopted by the International Red Cross Conference. Unfortunately, most governments had little interest in implementing this convention, and it was thus prevented from entering into force before the beginning of
World War II
.
Photo taken by
Maurice Rossel
at choreographed
Theresienstadt
visit. Most of the children were murdered at
Auschwitz
in the fall of 1944.
[15]
The Red Cross' response to
the Holocaust
has been the subject of significant controversy and criticism. As early as May 1944, the ICRC was criticized for its indifference to
Jewish
suffering and death?criticism that intensified after the end of the war, when the full extent of the Holocaust became undeniable.
One defense to these allegations is that the Red Cross was trying to preserve its reputation as a neutral and impartial organization by not interfering with what was viewed as a German internal matter. The Red Cross also considered its primary focus to be
prisoners of war
whose countries had signed the
Geneva Convention
.
The Geneva Conventions in their 1929 revision formed the legal basis of the work of the ICRC during World War II. The activities of the committee were similar to those during World War I: visiting and monitoring
POW camps
, organizing relief assistance for
civilian populations
, and administering the exchange of messages regarding prisoners and missing persons. By the end of the war, 179 delegates had conducted 12,750 visits to POW camps in 41 countries. The Central Information Agency on Prisoners-of-War (
Agence centrale des prisonniers de guerre
) had a staff of 3,000, the card index tracking prisoners contained 45 million cards, and 120 million messages were exchanged by the Agency. One major obstacle was that the
Nazi
-controlled
German Red Cross
refused to cooperate with the Geneva statutes, including blatant violations such as the deportation of Jews from Germany, and the
mass murders
conducted in the
Nazi concentration camps
.
War 1939?45. Geneva, Central Prisoners of war Agency, Electoral building/Palace of the General Council
Two other main parties to the conflict, the
Soviet Union
and Japan, were not party to the 1929 Geneva Conventions and were not legally required to follow the rules of the conventions.
During the war, the ICRC was unable to obtain an agreement with
Nazi Germany
about the treatment of detainees in
concentration camps
, and the ICRC eventually abandoned applying pressure, saying later it did so in order to avoid disrupting its work with POWs. The ICRC was also unable to obtain a response to reliable information about the
extermination camps
and the mass killing of European Jews,
Roma
, et al. After November 1943, the ICRC achieved permission to send
parcels
to concentration camp detainees with known names and locations. Because the notices of receipt for these parcels were often signed by other inmates, the ICRC managed to register the identities of about 105,000 detainees in the concentration camps and delivered about 1.1 million parcels, primarily to the concentration camps
Dachau
,
Buchenwald
,
Ravensbruck
, and
Sachsenhausen
.
Marcel Junod
, delegate of the ICRC, visiting
POWs
in Germany
Maurice Rossel
was sent to Berlin as a delegate of the International Red Cross; he visited
Theresienstadt Ghetto
in 1944. The choice of the inexperienced Rossel for this mission has been interpreted as indicative of his organization's indifference to the "Jewish problem", while his report has been described as "emblematic of the failure of the ICRC" to advocate for Jews during the Holocaust.
Rossel's report was noted for its uncritical acceptance of
Nazi propaganda
.
[a]
He erroneously stated that Jews were not deported from Theresienstadt.
Claude Lanzmann
recorded his experiences in 1979, producing a documentary entitled
A Visitor from the Living
.
[20]
On 12 March 1945, ICRC president Jacob Burckhardt received a message from SS General
Ernst Kaltenbrunner
allowing ICRC delegates to visit the concentration camps. This agreement was bound by the condition that these delegates would have to stay in the camps until the end of the war. Ten delegates, among them Louis Haefliger (
Mauthausen-Gusen
), Paul Dunant (
Theresienstadt
), and Victor Maurer (
Dachau
) accepted the assignment and visited the camps. Louis Haefliger prevented the forceful eviction or blasting of Mauthausen-Gusen by alerting American troops.
[
citation needed
]
Telegram by ICRC delegate Fritz Bilfinger from
Hiroshima
three weeks after the
atomic bombing
Friedrich Born
(1903?1963), an ICRC delegate in
Budapest
who saved the lives of about 11,000 to 15,000 Jewish people in
Hungary
.
[
citation needed
]
Marcel Junod
(1904?1961), a physician from Geneva was one of the first foreigners to visit
Hiroshima
after the
atomic bomb
was dropped.
In 1944, the ICRC received its second Nobel Peace Prize. As in World War I, it received the only Peace Prize awarded during the main period of war, 1939 to 1945. At the end of the war, the ICRC worked with national Red Cross societies to organize relief assistance to those countries most severely affected. In 1948, the Committee published a report reviewing its war-era activities from 1 September 1939 to 30 June 1947. The ICRC opened its archives from World War II in 1996.
After World War II; 20th century
edit
Budapest 1945. Repatriation of 2,000 Italian
prisoners of war
.
On 12 August 1949, further revisions to the existing two Geneva Conventions were adopted. An additional convention "for the Amelioration of the Condition of Wounded, Sick and Shipwrecked Members of Armed Forces at Sea", now called the second Geneva Convention, was brought under the Geneva Convention umbrella as a successor to the
1907 Hague Convention X
. The 1929 Geneva convention "relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War" may have been the second Geneva Convention from a historical point of view (because it was actually formulated in Geneva), but after 1949 it came to be called the third Convention because it came later chronologically than the Hague Convention. Reacting to the experience of World War II, the
Fourth Geneva Convention
, a new Convention "relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War", was established. Also, the additional protocols of 8 June 1977 were intended to make the conventions apply to internal conflicts such as civil wars. Today, the four conventions and their added protocols contain more than 600 articles, while there were only 10 articles in the first 1864 convention.
[
citation needed
]
In celebration of its centennial in 1963, the ICRC, together with the
League of Red Cross Societies
, received its third Nobel Peace Prize.
[
citation needed
]
ICRC Headquarters in Geneva
On 16 October 1990, the
UN General Assembly
granted the ICRC
observer status
for its assembly sessions and sub-committee meetings, the first observer status given to a private organization. The resolution was jointly proposed by 138 member states and introduced by the Italian ambassador, in memory of the organization's origins in the Battle of Solferino. An agreement with the Swiss government signed on 19 March 1993 affirmed the already long-standing policy of full independence of the committee from any interference by Switzerland. The 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.
[
citation needed
]
At the end of the
Cold War
, the ICRC's work became more dangerous. In the 1990s, more delegates died than at any point in its history, especially when working in local and internal armed conflicts. These incidents often demonstrated a lack of respect for the rules of the Geneva Conventions and their protection symbols. Among the slain delegates were:
- Nancy Malloy
(Canada) and five others. They were shot at point-blank range while sleeping on 17 December 1996 in an ICRC field hospital in the
Chechen
city of
Nowije Atagi
near
Grozny
. Their murderers have never been caught.
[
citation needed
]
- Ricardo Munguia (El Salvador). He was working as a water engineer in Afghanistan and travelling with local colleagues on 27 March 2003 when their car was stopped by unknown armed men. He was shot, while his colleagues were allowed to escape. His killing prompted the ICRC to temporarily suspend operations across Afghanistan.
[21]
- Vatche Arslanian
(Canada). He worked as a logistics coordinator for the ICRC mission in Iraq. He was killed while travelling through Baghdad together with members of the Iraqi Red Crescent. On 8 April 2003 their car accidentally came into a cross-fire of fighting.
On 27 January 2002, Palestinian Red Crescent volunteer paramedic and
suicide bomber
Wafa Idris
was transported to Jerusalem, Israel, by a Red Crescent ambulance, whose driver was part of the plot, and killed herself while committing the
Jaffa Street bombing
.
[22]
[23]
Idris, wearing a Red Crescent uniform, detonated a 22-pound (10 kilogram) bomb made up of TNT packed into pipes, in the center of Jerusalem outside a shoe store on the busy main shopping street
Jaffa Road
.
[24]
[25]
[26]
[27]
The explosion she caused killed her and Pinhas Tokatli (81), and injured more than 100 others.
[28]
In the 2000s, the ICRC has been active in the
Afghanistan conflict
areas and has set up six physical rehabilitation centers to help
land mine
victims. Their support extends to the national and international armed forces, civilians and the armed opposition. They regularly visit detainees under the custody of the Afghan government and the international armed forces, but have also occasionally had access since 2009 to people detained by the
Taliban
.
[29]
They have provided basic first aid training and aid kits to both the Afghan security forces and Taliban members because, according to an ICRC spokesperson, "ICRC's constitution stipulates that all parties harmed by warfare will be treated as fairly as possible".
[30]
In August 2021, when
NATO
-led forces retreated from Afghanistan, the ICRC decided to remain in the country to continue its mission to assist and protect victims of conflict. Since June 2021, ICRC-supported facilities have treated more than 40,000 people wounded during armed confrontations there.
[31]
Russo-Ukrainian conflict
edit
Among the ten largest ICRC deployments worldwide has been the mission in
Ukraine
, where the organization has been active since 2014, working closely with the
Ukrainian Red Cross Society
. At first, the ICRC was active primarily in the disputed regions of
Donbas
and
Donetsk
, assisting persons injured by armed confrontations there. When
Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022
, the fighting moved to more populated areas in East, North, and South Ukraine. The head of the ICRC delegation in
Kyiv
warned on 26 February 2022 that neighborhoods of major cities were becoming the frontline with significant consequences for their populations, including children, the sick, and elderly. The ICRC urgently called on all parties to the conflict not to forget their obligations under
international humanitarian law
to ensure the protection of the civilian population and infrastructure, and respect the dignity of refugees and
prisoners of war
.
[32]
In response to events in the conflict, the organisation issued
rule of engagement for civilian hackers
.
[33]
Israel?Hamas conflict
edit
Prior to the
2023 Israel?Hamas war
Israeli authorities required Palestinian ambulances to undergo thorough searches when passing through checkpoints, saying the policy was driven by Palestinian organizations using ambulances to transport terrorists and armaments.
[34]
[35]
[36]
[37]
The Israeli Ministry of Health said that: "The Red Crescent closely cooperated with the MDA (
Magen David Adom
) until April 2002. At that time, the IDF claimed that Red Crescent ambulances were being used to carry terrorists. The Red Crescent personnel involved in this violation were interrogated."
[38]
In October 2023, the ICRC responded to the
2023 Israel?Hamas war
that has resulted in the deaths of thousands of civilians. The ICRC has called the violence "abhorrent" and implored both sides to reduce the suffering of civilians.
The ICRC, working closely with their Red Crescent partners, has a neutral, independent and exclusively humanitarian mandate during such escalations of violence in the Middle East and urged all parties to protect the lives of civilians, to reduce their suffering and protect their dignity.
[39]
During the violent conflict, the ICRC and the
Palestinian Red Crescent Society
(PRCS) provided hospitals in the Gaza strip with support through large humanitarian convoys from
Egypt
, and was seriously affected by numerous aerial attacks on medical facilities and ambulances.
[40]
The ICRC said in November that civilians have "overwhelmingly borne the brunt" civilians the fighting in the Palestinian enclave and Israel so far. Israeli forces have killed over 25,000 people, including civilians, Israeli nationals, and Hamas members in a devastating bombing campaign and ground offensive.
[41]
[42]
[43]
In late November, the team of the ICRC started a multi-day operation to facilitate the release and transfer of hostages held in Gaza and of Palestinian prisoners to the West Bank.
[44]
In early December, US Secretary of State
Antony Blinken
insisted that the Red Cross delegation must have access to the remaining hostages. The ICRC is not a negotiating power but the ICRC chief had direct talks with senior Hamas leader
Ismail Haniyeh
in
Qatar
in November, demanding direct access to the remaining hostages.
[45]
Henry Davison
, Founding father of the League of Red Cross societies
In 1919, representatives from the national Red Cross societies of Britain, France, Italy, Japan, and the US came together in Paris to found the "League of Red Cross Societies" (IFRC). The original idea came from
Henry Davison
, who was then president of the
American Red Cross
. This move, led by the American Red Cross, expanded the international activities of the Red Cross movement beyond the strict mission of the ICRC to include relief assistance in response to emergency situations which were not caused by war (such as man-made or natural disasters). The ARC already had great disaster relief mission experience extending back to its foundation.
The formation of the League, as an additional international Red Cross organization alongside the ICRC, was not without controversy for a number of reasons. The ICRC had, to some extent, valid concerns about a possible rivalry between the two organizations. The foundation of the League was seen as an attempt to undermine the leadership position of the ICRC within the movement and to gradually transfer most of its tasks and competencies to a multilateral institution. In addition to that, all founding members of the League were national societies from countries of the
Entente
or from associated partners of the Entente.
The original statutes of the League from May 1919 contained further regulations which gave the five founding societies a privileged status and, due to the efforts of Henry Davison, the right to permanently exclude the national Red Cross societies from the countries of the
Central Powers
, namely Germany, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey, and in addition to that the national Red Cross society of Russia. These rules were contrary to the Red Cross principles of universality and equality among all national societies, a situation which furthered the concerns of the ICRC.
The first relief assistance mission organized by the League was an aid mission for the victims of a famine and subsequent
typhus
epidemic in Poland. Only five years after its foundation, the League had already issued 47 donation appeals for missions in 34 countries, an impressive indication of the need for this type of Red Cross work. The total sum raised by these appeals reached 685 million Swiss francs, which were used to bring emergency supplies to the victims of famines in Russia, Germany, and Albania; earthquakes in Chile,
Persia
, Japan, Colombia, Ecuador, Costa Rica, and Turkey; and refugee flows in Greece and Turkey. The first large-scale disaster mission of the League came after the 1923 earthquake in Japan which killed about 200,000 people and left countless more wounded and without shelter. Due to the League's coordination, the Red Cross society of Japan received goods from its sister societies reaching a total worth of about $100 million. Another important new field initiated by the League was the creation of youth Red Cross organizations within the national societies.
A stamp from the Faroe Islands
A stamp from Turkey
A joint mission of the ICRC and the League in the
Russian Civil War
from 1917 to 1922 marked the first time the movement was involved in an internal conflict, although still without an explicit mandate from the Geneva Conventions. The League, with support from more than 25 national societies, organized assistance missions and the distribution of food and other aid goods for civil populations affected by hunger and disease. The ICRC worked with the
Russian Red Cross Society
and later the society of the
Soviet Union
, constantly emphasizing the ICRC's neutrality. In 1928, the "International Council" was founded to coordinate cooperation between the ICRC and the League, a task which was later taken over by the "Standing Commission". In the same year, a common statute for the movement was adopted for the first time, defining the respective roles of the ICRC and the League within the movement.
During the
Abyssinian war
between Ethiopia and Italy from 1935 to 1936, the League contributed aid supplies worth about 1.7 million Swiss francs. Because the Italian fascist regime under
Benito Mussolini
refused any cooperation with the Red Cross, these goods were delivered solely to Ethiopia. During the war, an estimated 29 people died while being under explicit protection of the Red Cross symbol, most of them due to attacks by the Italian Army. During the
civil war in Spain
from 1936 to 1939 the League once again joined forces with the ICRC with the support of 41 national societies. In 1939 on the brink of the Second World War, the League relocated its headquarters from Paris to Geneva to take advantage of Swiss neutrality.
Peace Nobel Prize ceremony in 1963. From left to right:
Crown Prince Harald of Norway
,
King Olav of Norway
, ICRC president Leopold Boissier, League Chairman John A. MacAulay.
In 1952, the 1928 common statute of the movement was revised for the first time. Also, the period of
decolonization
from 1960 to 1970 was marked by a huge jump in the number of recognized national Red Cross and Red Crescent societies. By the end of the 1960s, there were more than 100 societies around the world. On 10 December 1963, the Federation and the ICRC received the Nobel Peace Prize. In 1983, the League was renamed to the "League of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies" to reflect the growing number of national societies operating under the Red Crescent symbol. Three years later, the seven basic principles of the movement as adopted in 1965 were incorporated into its statutes. The name of the League was changed again in 1991 to its current official designation the "International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies". In 1997, the ICRC and the IFRC signed the
Seville Agreement
which further defined the responsibilities of both organizations within the movement. In 2004, the IFRC began its largest mission to date after the
tsunami disaster in South Asia
. More than 40 national societies have worked with more than 22,000 volunteers to bring relief to the countless victims left without food and shelter and endangered by the risk of epidemics.
The Red Cross, Red Crescent and Red Crystal emblems are officially recognized by the movement. De jure, the Red Lion and Sun emblem is also an official emblem, though it has fallen to disuse.
[55]
Various other countries have also lobbied for alternative symbols, which have been rejected because of concerns of territorialism.
[56]
[57]
Red Cross
The Red Cross emblem was officially approved in Geneva in 1863.
[58]
The Red Cross flag is not to be confused with the
Saint George's Cross
depicted on the flags of
England
,
Barcelona
,
Georgia
,
Freiburg im Breisgau
, and several other places. In order to avoid this confusion the protected symbol is sometimes referred to as the "Greek Red Cross"; that term is also used in
United States
law to describe the Red Cross. The red cross of the Saint George cross extends to the edge of the flag, whereas the red cross on the Red Cross flag does not.
The Red Cross flag is the colour-switched version of the
Flag of Switzerland
, in recognition of "the pioneering work of Swiss citizens in establishing internationally recognized standards for the protection of wounded combatants and military medical facilities".
[59]
In 1906, to put an end to the argument of the Ottoman Empire that the flag took its roots from Christianity, it was decided officially to promote the idea that the Red Cross flag had been formed by reversing the federal colours of
Switzerland
, although no written evidence of this origin had ever been found.
The 1899 convention signed at the Hague extended the use of the Red Cross flag to
naval ensigns
, requiring that "all hospital ships shall make themselves known by hoisting, together with their national flag, the white flag with a red cross provided by the Geneva Convention".
[59]
Red Crescent
The Red Crescent emblem was first used by ICRC volunteers during the
armed conflict of 1876?1878
between the
Ottoman Empire
and the
Russian Empire
. The symbol was officially adopted in 1929, and so far 33 states in the Muslim world have recognized it. In common with the official promotion of the red cross symbol as a colour-reversal of the Swiss flag (rather than a religious symbol), the red crescent is similarly presented as being derived from a colour-reversal of the flag of the Ottoman Empire.
Red Crystal
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was concerned with the possibility that the two previous symbols (Red Cross and Red Crescent) were conveying religious meanings which would not be compatible with, for example, a majority
Hindu
or
Buddhist
country from the
Asia-Pacific
region, where the majority did not associate with these symbols. Therefore, in 1992, the then-president
Cornelio Sommaruga
decided that a third, more neutral symbol was required.
[61]
[62]
On 8 December 2005, in response to growing pressure to accommodate
Magen David Adom
(MDA), Israel's national emergency medical, disaster, ambulance, and blood bank service, as a full member of the Red Cross and Red Crescent movement, a new emblem (officially the Third Protocol Emblem, but more commonly known as the Red Crystal) was adopted by an amendment of the
Geneva Conventions
known as
Protocol III
, fulfilling Sommaruga's suggestion.
[63]
[62]
The Crystal can be found on official buildings and occasionally in the field. This symbolises equality and has no political, religious, or geographical connotations, thus allowing any country not comfortable with the symbolism of the original two flags to join the movement.
[64]
[62]
Red Lion and Sun
The
Red Lion and Sun Society
of Iran was established in 1922 and admitted to the Red Cross and Red Crescent movement in 1923.
[65]
The symbol was introduced at Geneva in 1864,
[66]
as a counter example to the crescent and cross used by two of Iran's rivals, the Ottoman and the Russian empires. Although that claim is inconsistent with the Red Crescent's history, that history also suggests that the Red Lion and Sun, like the Red Crescent, may have been conceived during the
1877?1878 war between Russia and Turkey
.
Due to the emblem's association with the Iranian monarchy, the
Islamic Republic of Iran
replaced the Red Lion and Sun with the Red Crescent in 1980, consistent with two existing Red Cross and Red Crescent symbols. Although the Red Lion and Sun has now fallen into disuse, Iran has in the past reserved the right to take it up again at any time; the
Geneva Conventions
continue to recognize it as an official emblem, and that status was confirmed by
Protocol III
in 2005 even as it added the Red Crystal.
[55]
Unrecognized emblems; Red Star of David and Red Swastika
edit
Magen David Adom
For over 50 years, the
State of Israel
requested the addition of a red
Star of David
, arguing that since Christian and Muslim emblems were recognized, the corresponding Jewish emblem should be as well, despite the Red Cross and Red Crescent symbols being used outside of a religious context. This emblem has been used by
Magen David Adom
(MDA), or Red Star of David, but it is not recognized by the Geneva Conventions as a protected symbol.
[67]
The Red Star of David is not recognized as a protected symbol outside Israel; instead the MDA uses the Red Crystal emblem during international operations in order to ensure protection. Depending on the circumstances, it may place the Red Star of David inside the Red Crystal, or use the Red Crystal alone.
In her March 2000 letter to the
International Herald Tribune
and the
New York Times
,
Bernadine Healy
, then president of the
American Red Cross
, wrote: "The international committee's feared proliferation of symbols is a pitiful
fig leaf
, used for decades as the reason for excluding the Magen David Adom?the Shield (or Star) of David."
[68]
In protest, the American Red Cross withheld millions in administrative funding to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies since May 2000.
[69]
In 1922, a
Red Swastika Society
was formed in China during the
Warlord era
. The
swastika
is used in the
Indian subcontinent
, East, and Southeast Asia as a symbol to represent
Dharma
or
Hinduism
,
Buddhism
, and
Jainism
in general. While the organization has organized philanthropic relief projects (both domestic and international), as a sectarian religious body it is ineligible for recognition from the International Committee.
[
citation needed
]