Daniel Palmieri is the historical research officer at the ICRC. He is the author of numerous works on ICRC history and on the history of war. AbstractThis article seeks to explain how the ICRCthe oldest international humanitarian organization still in activityhas managed to pass through 150 years of existence. By analysing some key moments in ICRC history and by examining both its inner workings and their interaction with the context within which the organization has functioned over time, this article finds two characteristics that may help explain the ICRC's continuity: its unique specificity and its innovative capacity.The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was born out of a wager on the future by five Geneva citizens. The five met on 17 February 1863 to consider the proposals made by one of them and to simultaneously form a 'Permanent
Ire' ne Herrmann is associate professor of modern history at the University of Fribourg and lecturer of Swiss history at the University of Geneva. Daniel Palmieri is historical research officer at the ICRC. AbstractToday, war is still perceived as being the prerogative of men only. Women are generally excluded from the debate on belligerence, except as passive victims of the brutality inflicted on them by their masculine contemporaries. Yet history shows that through the ages, women have also played a role in armed hostilities, and have sometimes even been the main protagonists. In the present article, the long history and the multiple facets of women's involvement in war are recounted from two angles: women at war (participating in war) and women in war (affected by war). The merit of a genderbased division of roles in war is then examined with reference to the ancestral practice of armed violence.Since time immemorial, war has been an integral part of the history of humankind. 1 Yet this age-old activity seems to have been the preserve of only part of humankind, since war is still perceived as being essentially a male affair. Many arguments have been put forward to explain this male predominance. 'Innate violence', 'the predator instinct', or even 'the death wish', traits believed to be particularly developed in men, are said to explain their propensity to go to war. Cultural traditions which instil the cult of war into boys from an early
What is an ICRC delegate?'' Here, in a sentence, is the focus of this article. Going through the in-house perception, which highlights the extraordinary and singular nature of this humanitarian player, and through the view of the public, which oscillates between the missionary of humanity and the mere holder of a temporary job, the authors attempt to give the reader the key to unveil and discover this peculiar profession.
Despite the recurrence of hostage-taking through the ages, the subject of hostages themselves has thus far received little analysis. Classically, there are two distinct types of hostages: voluntary hostages, as was common practice during the Ancien Régime of pre-Revolution France, when high-ranking individuals handed themselves over to benevolent jailers as guarantors for the proper execution of treaties; and involuntary hostages, whose seizure is a typical procedure in all-out war where individuals are held indiscriminately and without consideration, like living pawns, to gain a decisive military upper hand. Today the status of “hostage” is a combination of both categories taken to extremes. Though chosen for pecuniary, symbolic or political reasons, hostages are generally mistreated. They are in fact both the reflection and the favoured instrument of a major moral dichotomy: that of the increasing globalization of European and American principles and the resultant opposition to it — an opposition that plays precisely on the western adherence to human and democratic values. In the eyes of his countrymen, the hostage thus becomes the very personification of the innocent victim, a troubling and haunting image.
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