The ICRC’s mission is to provide the victims of armed conflict with protection and assistance. To that end, the ICRC takes direct and immediate action in response to emergency situations, while at the same time promoting preventive measures, such as the dissemination and national implementation of IHL.

It was on the ICRC’s initiative that States adopted the original Geneva Convention of 1864. Since then, the ICRC, with the support of the entire Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, has put constant pressure on governments to adapt IHL to changing circumstances, in particular to modern developments in the means and methods of warfare, so as to provide more effective protection and assistance for conflict victims.

Today, all States are bound by the four Geneva Conventions of 1949, which, in times of armed conflict, protect wounded, sick and shipwrecked members of the armed forces, prisoners of war and civilians.

Over three-quarters of all States are currently party to the 1977 Protocols additional to the Geneva Conventions. Protocol I protects the victims of international armed conflicts, while Protocol II protects the victims of non-international armed conflicts. These instruments have in particular codified the rules protecting the civilian population against the effects of hostilities.

The legal bases of any action undertaken by the ICRC may be summed up as follows:

• the four Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocol I confer on the ICRC a specific mandate to act in the event of international armed conflict. In particular, the ICRC has the right to visit prisoners of war and civilian internees. The Conventions also give the ICRC a broad right of initiative

• in situations of armed conflict that are not international in character, the ICRC enjoys a right of humanitarian initiative recognized by the international community and enshrined in Article 3 common to the four Geneva Conventions

• in the event of internal disturbances and tensions, and in any other situation that warrants humanitarian action, the ICRC also enjoys a right of initiative, which is affirmed and recognized in the Statutes of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. Thus, wherever IHL does not apply, the ICRC may offer its services to governments without that offer constituting interference in the internal affairs of the State concerned