In cities from Gaza to those in Sudan and Ukraine, childhoods are irrevocably changed by urban warfare. Yet despite the number of children affected and the increasingly urbanized nature of conflict, the detail of the child-specific nature of the harm caused remains poorly understood by practitioners and decision-makers. To address this gap, in 2023 the ICRC published a new report – Childhood in Rubble: The Humanitarian Consequences of Urban Warfare for Children – drawing from existing literature, 52 interviews with experts, and the organization’s firsthand experience. 

In this post, three of the report’s contributors set out eight overlooked ways that children are affected by urban warfare and outline a set of legal, policy and operational recommendations that states, non-state armed groups and humanitarians could implement to elevate the protection of children from media rallying cry to political priority.

Beyond the rubble: eight overlooked ways that urban warfare is affecting children

When the very first Geneva Convention was adopted in 1864, it was the culmination of several interwoven humanitarian projects of the ICRC’s principal founder, Henry Dunant. One of those ambitions was the conception, standardization, and integration into what would become known as international humanitarian law (IHL) of the distinctive emblem of the Convention. Designed to signal the specific protections IHL accords to the medical services and certain humanitarian operations, the emblem – today the red cross, red crescent, and red crystal – is displayed on different persons and objects in the physical world, including on buildings, transports, units, equipment, and personnel that are accorded these protections. Over its 160-year history, the distinctive emblem has saved countless lives.

Today, the ICRC is again engaged in a project to conceive, standardize, and integrate into IHL a means to identify those very same specific protections, but in a way the drafters of the original 1864 Geneva Convention could not have imagined: a digital emblem specifically designed to identify the digital assets of the medical services and certain humanitarian operations. In this post, building on previous work on this topic, ICRC Legal Adviser Samit D’Cunha summarizes some of the key milestones of the history and development of the distinctive emblem and explores how these milestones serve as a lodestone – or compass – for the Digital Emblem Project’s path forward.

Conceive, standardize, integrate: distinctive emblems and signs under IHL

The Fourth Geneva Convention was the first humanitarian law convention dedicated to protections for civilians during armed conflict. Amongst its numerous protective rules, it also provides the main rules of international humanitarian law (IHL) governing the exceptional practice of internment of protected persons – detention of such persons for security reasons during international armed conflict.

In this post, and in commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the Geneva Conventions this year, Group Captain Tim Wood, Provost Marshal of the New Zealand Defence Force, shares his views and practical insights with regards to procedures for internment review of civilians. Drawing on operational experience, he considers some of the characteristics of review bodies which are essential for them to properly fulfil their role.

Procedures for internment review under the Fourth Geneva Convention: reflections from New Zealand

Water and wastewater pipelines, electricity lines and telecommunication installations permeate contemporary urban landscapes and form complex, interdependent service networks, which populations rely on for their essential needs. Armed conflict can damage or disrupt these networks and the essential services they provide. In recent years, increasing attention has been paid to protecting critical civilian infrastructure, yet addressing the humanitarian impact of essential service disruption requires a broader focus beyond physical infrastructure.   

In this post, the group of experts behind the newly released report “Keeping the Lights on and the Taps Running”, co-published by the ICRC and the Norwegian Red Cross, highlight the crucial yet often overlooked role of the personnel who operate, maintain, and repair essential service infrastructure during hostilities. They argue that protecting and facilitating safer access for essential service providers during armed conflict should be considered a key component of humanitarian action and review the Movement's experience in doing so.

Protecting essential service personnel is a vital part of humanitarian action

Detention by non-state armed groups is a widespread, diverse, and legally complex occurrence in armed conflicts across the globe. In 2023, the ICRC assessed that around 70 non-state armed groups in non-international armed conflicts have detainees. The circumstances of detention can pose serious humanitarian concerns, including ill-treatment and inadequate living conditions for detainees. 

In this post, part of a series on the Fourth Geneva Convention and the internment of protected persons and drawing upon the 2024 ICRC Challenges Report, ICRC Legal Adviser Tilman Rodenhäuser discusses the prohibition of arbitrary detention under international humanitarian law (IHL) and how this relates to internment by non-state armed groups in the context of non-international armed conflicts.

Internment by non-state armed groups: legal and practical limits

Food insecurity remains a critical issue in modern armed conflicts, exacerbated by the mutually reinforcing effects of conflict, economic shocks, and climate change. In response, the ICRC's 2024 Challenges Report emphasizes how compliance with a broad range of rules of  international humanitarian law (IHL) can help avoid acute food crises, and highlights a number of contemporary obstacles to achieving such compliance in practice.

In this post, ICRC Legal Adviser Matt Pollard highlights key legal protections under IHL, including the prohibition against using starvation as a method of warfare. He stresses the importance of a much wider range of rules relevant to safeguarding civilian access to essential resources like food and water, and outlines how avoiding unduly narrow interpretations of such IHL rules is essential to reducing food insecurity and its devastating long-term effects during armed conflicts.

IHL and the challenge of maintaining food security in armed conflict

The 34th International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent will take place 28-31 October 2024 in Geneva, Switzerland. At this meeting, states party to the 1949 Geneva Conventions and the components of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement will meet to discuss humanitarian issues under this International Conference’s theme “Navigate uncertainty, strengthen humanity”.

In the lead-up to this meeting, ICRC Legal Adviser Ellen Policinski looks back at the role of the International Conference in drafting the 1949 Geneva Conventions, in particular the Fourth Geneva Convention, which protects civilians.

The Geneva Conventions at 75: the role of the Int'l Conference in securing protection for civilians

On August 6th and 9th 1945, Hiroshima and Nagasaki became the first – and so far only – targets of nuclear weapons in warfare, killing over 100,000 people instantly and devastating countless lives for decades to come. The humanitarian consequences of such weapons are unmatched in scale and severity. While legal and ethical arguments against the most horrendous weapons have existed since the 19th century, nuclear arsenals remain active and are even expanding, as global discourse shifts away from nuclear disarmament toward renewed reliance on deterrence.

In this post, ICRC Policy Adviser Dominique Loye traces the evolution of legal and humanitarian objections to nuclear weapons, from the 1868 Saint Petersburg Declaration to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). He argues that despite hopeful legal and diplomatic milestones, the world is once again drifting towards catastrophe. With the 2026 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) Review Conference on the horizon, the time is now to reframe global security around humanity – not annihilation – and to take urgent, collective steps to reduce nuclear risks and prevent their use.

An evitable catastrophe: reclaiming humanity from the nuclear brink

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the Fundamental Principles of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement – humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence, voluntary service, unity and universality. Proclaimed in Vienna in 1965, they were born not as abstract ideals but as the direct result of over a hundred years of humanitarian action. They have enabled aid to cross frontlines, families to be reunited, and hope to reach places of despair. Yet today, the world in which they must operate is under extraordinary strain: conflicts drag on for years, humanitarian workers face record levels of attack, climate shocks compound existing crises, digitalization reshapes the battlefield, and politicization erodes the fragile space where help can reach those who need it most. The human consequences of war remain devastatingly constant, and the Principles- that have guided the Movement since 1965 are under growing pressure.

In this post, ICRC’s Director General Pierre Krähenbühl reflects on the enduring relevance and importance of the Fundamental Principles in a rapidly shifting world. He argues that they are not self-sustaining ideals to be admired from afar, but living commitments that must be exercised and defended. Drawing on his three decades of humanitarian work, he makes the case that the Principles resist the dangerous normalization of war, safeguard access to people in need, and fuel the courage necessary to channel indignation into lifesaving action. At sixty, the Principles will only remain vital if we choose to live them, and in so doing, keep humanity alive in the darkest of times.

Sixty years on: why the Fundamental Principles must be lived, not just remembered

When wars end, peace rarely begins overnight. It’s built, slowly and painstakingly, through acts that restore a sense of humanity where it was once suspended. Among these, how a society treats people it detains may seem peripheral, yet it can determine whether trust survives long enough for peace to take root. Humane detention, often overshadowed by more visible aspects of conflict recovery, is in fact one of the earliest and most concrete tests of readiness for peace. Each act of respect for law and dignity – registering a detainee, allowing a family visit, providing medical care, or releasing a prisoner when the reason for detention has ceased – helps reduce the harm that fuels revenge and instead preserves the fragile threads of trust that can bind divided societies. 

In this post, Terry Hackett, ICRC’s Head of the Persons Deprived of Liberty Unit, and Audrey Purcell-O’Dwyer, ICRC’s Legal Adviser with the Global Initiative on IHL, show how compliance with international humanitarian law (IHL) in detention – while not a direct path to peace – can serve as a legal and moral bridge towards it, one rooted in dignity, accountability, and the quiet rebuilding of trust. By limiting suffering and safeguarding dignity, it helps prevent conflicts from eroding the institutions and confidence that societies need to recover.

Peace can start in a prison cell: how IHL and humane detention can build pathways to peace

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Humanitarian Law & Policy blog is a unique space for timely analysis and debate on international humanitarian law (IHL) issues and the policies that shape humanitarian action.

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