EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This is the sixth report on international humanitarian law (IHL) and the challenges of contemporary armed conflicts prepared by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) for the International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent (International Conference). Similar reports were submitted to the International Conferences held in 2003, 2007, 2011, 2015 and 2019. The aim of all these reports is to provide an overview of some of the challenges posed by contemporary armed conflicts for IHL; generate broader reflection on those challenges; and outline current or prospective ICRC action, positions and areas of interest, and bring them to the attention of members of the International Conference.
Like its predecessors, this report addresses only some of the contemporary challenges to IHL. It outlines a number of issues that are the focus of increased interest among states and other actors, as well as the ICRC: nuclear weapons; protection of people in the hands of parties to armed conflict; conduct of hostilities; new technologies of warfare; impartial humanitarian work; and implementation of IHL. These issues include matters not addressed in previous reports, such as separated family members, missing people and obligations on the handling of the dead, food security, military operations in outer space, and how respect for IHL can contribute, in a modest way, to building steps towards peace. This report also provides an update on some issues of concern that were addressed in previous reports and that remain high on the international agenda, such as the urbanization of warfare, autonomous weapon systems and other new technologies of warfare, and protection of people deprived of their liberty.
***
The introduction to this report provides a brief overview of current armed conflicts and their human cost, and of the operational realities in which challenges to IHL arise. It also raises concern about corrosive tendencies in the interpretation and application of IHL that risk diminishing its ability to save lives. In the more than 75 years that have passed since their adoption, the Geneva Conventions of 1949 – complemented by the entire body of IHL – have saved countless lives, the devastating effects of warfare notwithstanding, and ensured respect and protection for thousands of detainees and medical patients. But parties to armed conflicts have also often failed to uphold IHL. As at every International Conference, the ICRC calls on states and parties to conflicts to do more to protect the victims of war.
The first chapter of this report focuses on nuclear weapons. Recent developments have once again drawn attention to the immense destructive potential of these weapons and the threat they pose to humanity. This chapter recalls the ways in which IHL addresses the issue of nuclear weapons. It highlights the importance of the treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons, which leads the way to the only solution for preserving humanity from the threat of nuclear weapons: eliminating them. If nuclear weapons continue to exist, humanity won’t.
Chapter II provides a legal analysis of the political and military discourse on ‘competition’ among states, ‘hybrid warfare’, ‘proxy warfare’ and potential legal ‘grey zones’.
Chapter III takes up the issue of protecting people in the hands of parties to armed conflict. Inevitably, armed conflicts produce suffering. Even in a conflict in which IHL is well respected, there will be people who are detained and others who are killed. Many of the thousands of people who go missing during hostilities never return, causing anguish and long-lasting hardship for their loved ones. Distress and hardship also follow the separation of children from their families. This chapter sheds light on the vast web of rules protecting people affected by armed conflict. It also emphasizes the need to recognize that people face many different needs and to apply IHL without adverse distinction.