Issues

Even Wars Have Limits

The Canadian Red Cross, as part of the larger Red Cross/Red Crescent Movement, is a leader on issues concerning humanitarian response to war and armed conflict. The founder of the International Red Cross/Red Crescent - Henry Dunant - fueled the formation of international humanitarian law (IHL), the governing laws of war.  More»

Children and War

All too often children are helpless, first-hand witnesses of atrocities committed against their parents or other family members. They are killed, mutilated, imprisoned or otherwise separated from their families. Cut off from the environment familiar to them, even those who manage to escape lack any certainty as to their future and that of their loved ones. They are often forced to flee, abandoned to their own devices and rejected without an identity.  More»

Women and War

International humanitarian law protects women when: they are combatants, by laying down limitations on permissible means and methods of warfare; they are captured, sick, wounded or shipwrecked combatants; they are members of the civilian population not taking an active part in the hostilities. More»

International Criminal Court

The United Nations has considered the idea of establishing a permanent international criminal court at various times ever since the end of the Second World War. In 1993 and 1994, it set up two ad hoc tribunals to punish serious violations of international humanitarian law committed, respectively, in the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. A series of negotiations to establish a permanent international criminal court that would have jurisdiction over serious international crimes, regardless of where they were committed started up in 1994 and led to the adoption of the Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in July 1998 in Rome. More»

Weapons»

Updated May 7, 2010