ICRC Humanitarian Law and Policy Blog

The term ‘human shields’ describes a method of warfare prohibited by international humanitarian law (IHL), during which the presence of civilians or the movement of the civilian population, whether voluntary or involuntary, is used to shield military objectives from attack, or to shield, favour or impede military operations. Human shields are always protected from attack unless and for such time a...

Human shields constitute part of the reality of contemporary armed conflicts, primarily fought in urban contexts. As such, they pose a host of complex legal issues, notably for destabilizing the traditional categorizations of international humanitarian law. In this post, part of our special series on urban warfare, Zoi Lafazani, PhD candidate and researcher in international law, describes the curr...

Intergovernmental discussions on the regulation of emerging technologies in the area of (lethal) autonomous weapon systems (AWS) are back on track in Geneva after more than a year of COVID-19 related disruptions. A critical task facing States is to further clarify how international humanitarian law (IHL) applies: what limits does it place on the development and use of AWS and, perhaps most importa...

The ‘Great Move’ to communication in the virtual world has been underway for some time. Spurred on by the COVID-19 pandemic, many of us have switched to the medium of a screen, raising questions as to what is lost and what is gained. This is of critical importance to the humanitarian sector, especially when carrying out negotiations which can have a life or death impact. At the heart of any negoti...

Communities enduring conflict are on the frontlines of the climate crisis. Paradoxically, they are also among the most neglected by climate action. It is increasingly urgent to act. The climate crisis is deeply unsettling, as it forces people to reinvent their ways of life. This reality needs to drive the conversation and lead to more and faster action. In this post – ahead of the UN Climate Chang...

Within a complex and growing threat landscape, the cyber arms race is ramping up, underscoring the need for reasonable and realistic constraints on the development and use of cyberweapons. To minimize the direct or indirect harm to civilians, cyber arms development should bolster technological development safety and cybersecurity measures, and offensive cyberspace operation execution should choose...

The destruction of nature and the world’s ecosystems presents an unprecedented challenge for humanity. With one million species on the brink of extinction – the 6th mass extinction event in world history – nature loss also has a profound impact on international peace and security. In this post – part of a special series on war, law and the environment co-hosted with the Conflict and Environment Ob...

When international law addresses a particular issue of concern, ultimately the intention is to have some kind of real impact on that issue. In the case of armed conflict and the environment, the aim is to enhance the protection of the natural environment from the negative effects of war. In this post, which is part of a special series on war, law and the environment co-hosted with the Conflict and...

Alongside the urbanization of armed conflict lies a second trend: the increase in the use of technology to augment methods of warfare. Although some may claim that the integration of technological solutions – such as increasing the precision of munitions or reliance upon enhanced data and surveillance collection and analysis tools – can reduce civilian harm, contemporary urban conflict demonstrate...

For almost eight years now, the international community at the United Nations (UN) has been discussing the various ethical, legal and security-related issues surrounding autonomy in weapons systems. The Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) in Geneva is the focal point of this exchange. Since 2017, a CCW Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) has been busy deliberating the structure and co...

Digital technologies and the always-on communications that underpin the internet have transformed our world in many positive ways, but have also enabled behaviors contrary to the public interest and even threatened the continued stability of the internet. The transformation has been technology-driven but carried out in a larger commercial, social, and legal environment that shapes how the technolo...

Warfare increasingly takes place in cyberspace. Consequently, the question arises how a digital analogy of the protective emblems, the red cross, red crescent and red crystal, could be realized. How could such an emblem be part of computer-to-computer communication? And how could its usage be limited to legitimate parties? In this post, continuing the discussion on the viability of a ‘digital embl...

The use of digital technology in armed conflict is rising sharply. Such developments come with risks, but they may also provide opportunities. For example, could new technologies help digitally signal that certain infrastructure and assets enjoy protection under international humanitarian law? For 150 years, the red cross and red crescent, and more recently the red crystal, have performed this fun...

When biometrics enters the news cycle, it is usually in the context of a critical discussion on the risks versus the benefits – an ethical debate, as evidenced by recent events in Afghanistan, that can be a matter of life and death. Taking a step back to a more technical level, fundamental questions arise: what is the purpose of collecting biometrics, and is it possible to process it in a way that...

Preventing persons from going missing, clarifying the fate and whereabouts of those who do and supporting their loved ones, including in their quest to know what happened and to seek justice for serious violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law, are as important as ever. Looking towards the International Day of Victims of Enforced Disappearance, ICRC legal adv...

As the world faces simultaneous disasters and burgeoning risks, humanitarian actors need to develop more efficient ways of delivering aid to vulnerable populations. One current trend involves the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) to process large amounts of data quickly to inform – and even autonomously undertake – decision-making processes. While these processes have t...

The rules and standards of war are not self-correcting. Contradictions, gaps, and ambiguities often endure until an external pressure makes them salient. This is particularly true of the laws governing military technology. In order to regulate new weapons, ‘shock’ is sometimes needed – a practical demonstration of harm that clarifies the morally and legally problematic status of the technology, an...

Drones are an increasingly common tool in humanitarian aid, but issues revolving around public perception and trust continue to slow their global rollout during disaster. Humanitarians can use new technologies that make it easier to tell drones apart from one another in flight to justify trust in the technology: they will also benefit from more research into why people distrust drones, and how the...

No country or sector has been spared the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Gaza Strip has certainly been no exception. In this post, Professor Moamin Aljaro, Professor of Law at the University of Palestine, outlines the three main digital challenges lecturers and students of international humanitarian law have faced since the onset of the pandemic.

Over the past decade, there has been a large and growing demand for digital services – such as ‘connectivity as aid’. Such services can be of great help to people affected by conflict, including by helping connect families that have been separated, or to access legal rights. At the same time, unsafeguarded connectivity points can expose already vulnerable individuals and populations to increased r...

In the spring of 2021, the ICRC and Geneva Academy jointly organized a student essay competition on the protection of civilians against the dangers posed by military cyber operations. Students from nearly 30 countries and all continents of the world contributed short essays answering the question: ‘Which measures – technical, policy, legal, or other – should States put in place to avoid or at leas...

Over the past decade, several States have begun to develop military cyber elements capable of both defending their national interests, as well as projecting their national power, by capitalizing on a vast, borderless, interwoven internet.  By applying lessons learned from recent history, a clear case emerges for governments to assess the risk of civilian harm resulting from current cyber operation...

How can countries at war assess the potential harm that cyber operations may cause to civilians? In this post, part of our series on avoiding civilian harm during military cyber operations, Ellie Shami argues that while it is clear States must implement measures to minimize the harm caused by any means and methods of warfare during armed conflicts, the unique characteristics of cyberspace as a war...

As we mark World Refugee Day this year, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has announced new and staggering figures, ones that have been growing steadily over the past ten years. By the end of 2020, 82.4 million people had been forced to flee their homes, among them 26.4 million refugees. Within these sobering statistics, three countries with a predominantly Muslim population held undes...

As the global geo-political landscape continues to experience increasing fragmentation, cyberspace grows in importance as a future conflict domain. Military-strategic understandings of cyber warfare – and its value, risks and rewards – are still at a nascent stage. This creates the potential for miscalculation and mistrust. The adversarial nature of cyberspace and its largely civilian infrastructu...