International Committee of the Red Cross—ICRC

Abstract

The Council is a subsidiary body of the Assembly, to which the latter delegates certain of its responsibilities. It prepares the Assembly’s activities and takes decisions on matters within its competence. The Council is composed of five members elected by the Assembly and is chaired by the President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). The ICRC promotes and monitors the application of international humanitarian law, provides legal protection and material assistance to military and civilian victims of wars, and also assists people affected by natural disasters in conflict zones, and vulnerable migrants. In 1864 12 states attending a Diplomatic Conference in Geneva signed the First Geneva Convention—an ICRC international treaty for ‘the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded in Armies in the Field’—thereby binding themselves to respect as neutral wounded soldiers and those assisting them. The ICRC’s internet-based ‘Restoring Family Links’ programme aims to reunite family members separated by conflict/disaster situations or along migration routes.