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

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