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Today's Solferinos
Address by Michael Schultz, Deputy Permanent Observer to the United Nations, at the 25th Annual Seminar on International Humanitarian Law, hosted by New York University and the International Committee of the Red Cross, in Geneva
5 March 2008 |
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I thank the organizers for the inviation to speak to you today and I shall speak on behalf of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the IFRC.
We have had the privilige to accompany these IHL Seminars for years and we have seen it evolving from an annual event into an institution with tradition.
Distinguished guests,
the short video we just saw has shed some light on what the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is, what its components are and what they do.
Allow me to attempt and brighten that picture a little further by sharing a few remarks on the history, IFRC and its membership and what we mean by multi-stakeholder diplomacy.
Next year, 2009, worldwide events will mark the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Solferino, in northern Italy.
The carnage on that battlefield was witnessed by Henry Dunant, whose Memoir of Solferino created the momentum which led to the formation of the ICRC and the conclusion, a year later, in 1864, of the first Geneva Convention and the beginnings of modern International Humanitarian Law.
2009 will also mark the 90th anniversary of the IFRC, which was established in 1919 as the League of Red Cross Societies and, as all humanitarians will recall, it will mark the 60th anniversary of the 1949 Geneva Conventions.
These connections make it very appropriate to speak today about the links between the Solferino of 1859 and today’s Solferinos.
They are not all battlefields like the one visited by Henri Dunant, but they are no less moving and no less deserving of the full weight of humanitarian diplomacy and associated international law.
One of these virtual battlefields is the fight against the ever-mounting devastation caused by natural disasters worldwide.
Traditionally, the need for diplomacy and rule-making has not been as evident to the international community with regard to disaster relief as it has for war. It was assumed that the cooperative spirit in which international disaster assistance is normally carried out would be sufficient to iron out any complications and overcome legal, bureaucratic or administrative hindrances.
However, this approach is increasingly showing its limits. This is due in part to the increasing numbers and severity of disasters striking our communities, a phenomenon now generally acknowledged to be resulting from global warming.
However, it is also linked to the growing complexity of the business of international relief. Whereas, for most of the last 150 years, the International Red Cross and Red Crescent was virtually alone in consistently providing cross-border peace-time relief, today there are many other actors who may also become involved. They range from governmental urban search and rescue teams, military forces, UN agencies, to NGOs and even private companies and individuals, not all of whom are fully competent to address the complexities of a major disaster operation.
Added to the largely unregulated and unplanned nature of disaster relief, these trends have led to an unconscionable accumulation of red tape in some areas and glaring failures of quality and coordination in others. To address this, the IFRC created its “International Disaster Response Laws, Rules and Principles”, in short “IDRL Programme” and spearheaded the development of a new instrument to assist states to be prepared for the common regulatory issues in international disaster assistance.
These “IDRL Guidelines” were unanimously adopted by the State parties to the Geneva Conventions and the components of the Movement at our International Conference last November in Geneva.
This represents a historic step toward harmonizing and strengthening the normative framework for disaster relief (1).
Distinguished guests,
today’s Solferinos are a version of the world which the founders of the League of Red Cross Societies had in mind at the close of the First World War.
It was, we must recall, then seen as the war to end all wars.
In the era to follow, as our founders clearly saw, there needed to be a new shaping of the world to preserve peace between nations and to create the conditions which would make war unnecessary.
It was to be a world, in the vision of President Woodrow Wilson, and as communicated to the then Chairman of the American Red Cross, in which the political relationships between States would be conducted within the fabric of a new League of Nations, and in which the humanitarian business of people would be supported by the existence of a new League of Red Cross Societies.
As we shall also recall, the politics of the time prevented the US Government from becoming a party to the Covenant of the League of Nations. But the American Red Cross, along with the Red Cross Societies of Britain, France, Italy and Japan founded the League of Societies, in 1919.
The link between the two institutions was firmly grounded in the Covenant of the League of Nations. Article 25 of the Covenant contained an obligation on member States to [I quote]: “… encourage and promote the establishment and co-operation of duly authorised voluntary national Red Cross organisations having as purposes the improvement of health, the prevention of disease and the mitigation of suffering throughout the world” [end of quote].
It was at about this time, 1919, that the modern International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement was born.
It is not an inter-governmental organization, but its Statutes have been approved by all States parties to the 1949 Geneva Conventions as well as its member Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, known as the National Societies. Its components today are 186 National Societies, the ICRC and our International Federation – 188 entities in all.
The Movement has rules which bind all components, and some which bind States party to the Geneva Conventions in certain contexts. For example, all States and all Movement components participate in quadrennial International Conferences of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, and none are permitted to engage in debates or other actions at the time which contravene the Fundamental Principles of the Movement.
This means that our meetings are, to a large extent, free of the political discourse which so often jeopardises the search for solutions to challenges in the United Nations and other intergovernmental bodies.
It means that our action in response to today’s Solferinos can and does take place in an atmosphere governed by neutrality and impartiality, and with an overriding objective of humanity.
These are three of our seven Fundamental Principles, and a fourth Principle, independence, assures beneficiaries and people in vulnerable situations that the action taken by the Red Cross and Red Crescent will always be uncontaminated by political considerations.
Distinguished guests,
in shorthand, the task of the National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and their International Federation is to work for a world in which people can live in peace and security by doing our utmost to alleviate the humanitarian consequences of disasters, disease, poverty and, in the words so aptly chosen in 1919, “ … to mitigate suffering throughout the world”.
We do this through a wide variety of actions at the local, national and international levels.
One of our main strengths comes from the fact that we are the only international organisation accredited to the United Nations General Assembly which has a community base.
We count many millions of volunteers and staff associated with our National Society members, and we have chapters, branches and sections in almost every town and community in the world.
Our National Societies have, from a base in the Geneva Conventions, a character which is unique. All National Societies are established by legislation of one kind or another in their respective countries. They are, hence, not NGOs in the modern understanding of the term but organisations “sui generis” in nature.
They are recognised as auxiliaries to the public authorities in the humanitarian field in their countries – and this was a principal point accepted by the United Nations General Assembly when it accorded Permanent Observer status to the IFRC in 1994 by adoption of resolution 49/2.
The United Nations has also comfortably accepted the place of the IFRC in its own inner workings. Our community base makes us a valued partner in the consideration of the best ways of addressing most of the issues at the centre of the UN’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), for that base enables us to bring the humanitarian voice of communities forward in settings where they would otherwise not be heard.
Sometimes, this voice calls for States to recognise that their own ways of doing business need to change, or that there are shortcomings in their responses to humanitarian crisis. Sometimes this has a direct impact on the way States examine legal obligations and interpretations.
More often, it calls for States and National Societies to refashion the way they work together. We see good examples of this among States whose limited resources compel togetherness to achieve results. One such example is the Association of Small Island States (AOSIS) which enables very small countries to achieve a degree of priority for their needs which would, frankly, be impossible to achieve by working alone.
This is particularly evident when addressing issues related to natural disasters, and climate change, and the IFRC works with the National Societies of AOSIS countries to strengthen their ability to address their special vulnerabilities.
For us in the IFRC Permanent Observer Mission in New York, this has special relevance when we work with the UN Secretariat’s Office of the High Representative for Least Developed Countries, Land-Locked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States (OHRLLS).
We bring to this work the ability of our National Societies in those countries to work with their public authorities in support of the MDGs, by linking to that intergovernmental effort our own, the IFRC’s, Global Agenda.
This, in some respects, is our special comparative advantage in the international community: we bring multi-stakeholder diplomacy to the table here in New York and other centres, a diplomacy enriched by our community base and the auxiliary role which our National Societies enjoy with their public authorities.
Distinguished guests,
I have not sought to describe our daily work within our Global Agenda, but this is all available from our website, www.ifrc.org. Suffice is for now to say that the IFRC differs significantly from its sister institution the ICRC, not only because of our different subject matter but because we are a membership organisation, currently with 186 National Society members.
Let me come to a close by, once more, congratulating to today´s 25th anniversary of these IHL Seminars and by expressing our hope that we will again join during forthcoming seminars and anniversaries, including on occasion, next year, of the Battle of Solferino, the Geneva Conventions and the 90th anniversary of the International Federation.
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ENDNOTES
(1) Full text at http://www.ifrc.org/Docs/pubs/idrl/guidelines/guidelines.pdf
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