On 12 August 1949, the existing two Geneva Conventions were changed, and the Hague Convention about casualties at sea was brought into the Geneva Convention "family". It was renamed the Second Geneva Covention, and so the second convention of 1929 is now called the third convention. The Fourth Geneva Convention, about the "Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War," was established. On 8 June 1977 extra article "protocols" were added to make the conventions apply to internal conflicts such as civil wars.
In 1963, the ICRC shared its third Nobel Peace Prize with the League of Red Cross Societies.
Since 1993, non-Swiss citizens have been allowed to serve as Committee delegates abroad, a task which was previously restricted to Swiss citizens. Now about one third of staff are not Swiss citizens.
On 16 October 1990, the UN General Assembly gave the ICRC observer status for its assembly sessions and sub-committee meetings, the first observer status given to a private organization. The resolution was jointly proposed by 138 member states and introduced by the Italian ambassador, Vieri Traxler, in memory of the organization's origins in the Battle of Solferino.
An agreement with the Swiss government signed on 19 March 1993, affirmed the already long-standing policy of full independence of the Committee from any interference by Switzerland. The agreement protects the full sanctity of all ICRC property in Switzerland including its headquarters and archive, grants members and staff legal immunity, exempts the ICRC from all taxes and fees, guarantees the protected and duty-free transfer of goods, services, and money, provides the ICRC with secure communication privileges at the same level as foreign embassies, and simplifies Committee travel in and out of Switzerland.
The ICRC continued its activities throughout the 1990s. It broke its usual silence when it denounced the Rwandan Genocide in 1994, and again in 1995 about the crimes that happened in and around Srebrenica when it said, "We must acknowledge that despite our efforts to help thousands of civilians forcibly expelled from the town and despite the dedication of our colleagues on the spot, the ICRC's impact on the unfolding of the tragedy was extremely limited." It went public once again in 2007 to decry "major human rights abuses" by Burma's military government including forced labor, starvation, and murder of men, women, and children.
At the end of the Cold War, the ICRC's work actually became more dangerous. In the 1990s, more delegates lost their lives than at any point in its history, especially when working in local and internal armed conflicts. These incidents often demonstrated a lack of respect for the rules of the Geneva Conventions and their protection symbols. Among the slain delegates were:
The original motto of the International Committee of the Red Cross was "Inter Arma Caritas" ("Amidst War, Charity"). It has preserved this motto while other Red Cross organizations have adopted others. Because Geneva is in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, the ICRC is also known under its French name "Comité international de la Croix-Rouge" (CICR). However, the ICRC has six official languages, including Arabic. The official symbol of the ICRC is the Red Cross on white background (the inverse of the Swiss flag)with the words "COMITE INTERNATIONAL GENEVE" circling the cross.
The ICRC drew up seven fundamental principles in 1965 that were adopted by the entire Red Cross Movement. They are
The 2005 budget of the ICRC was about 970 million Swiss francs. All payments to the ICRC are voluntary and are received as donations based on two types of appeals issued by the Committee: an annual "Headquarters Appeal" to cover its internal costs and "Emergency Appeals" for its individual missions.
Most of the ICRC's funding comes from Switzerland and the United States, with the other European states and the E.U. close behind. Together with Australia, Canada, Japan, and New Zealand, they contribute about 80-85% of the ICRC's budget. About 3% comes from private gifts, and the rest comes from national Red Cross societies.
The ICRC is responsible for legally recognizing a relief society as an official national Red Cross or Red Crescent society and thus accepting it into the Movement. The exact rules are in the statutes of the Movement. After recognition by the ICRC, a national society is admitted as a member to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent societies. The ICRC and the Federation cooperate with the individual national societies in their international missions, especially with human, material, and financial resources and organizing on-site logistics. According to the 1997 Seville Agreement, the ICRC is the lead Red Cross agency in conflicts while other organizations within the Movement take the lead in non-war situations. National societies will be given the lead especially when a conflict is happening within their own country.
The ICRC headquarters are in Geneva, Switzerland. It has other offices, called "Delegations", in about 80 countries. Each delegation is under the responsibility of a Head of delegation who is the official representative of the ICRC in the country. Of its 2,000 professional employees, roughly 800 work in its Geneva headquarters and 1,200 expatriates work in the field. About half of the field workers serve as delegates managing ICRC operations in the different countries while the other half are specialists like doctors, agronomists, engineers or interpreters. The international staff are assisted by some 13,000 national employees, so about 15,000 people work for the ICRC.
The Directorate is the executive body of the Committee.It carries out the policies set by the assembly.
The Directorate consists of a Director-General and five directors in the areas of "Operations", "Human Resources", "Resources and Operational Support", "Communication", and "International Law and Cooperation within the Movement". The members of the Directorate are appointed by the Assembly to serve for four years. The Director-General has assumed more personal responsibility in recent years, much like a CEO, where he was formerly more of a first among equals at the Directorate.
The Assembly (also called the Committee) convenes on a regular basis and is responsible for defining aims, guidelines, and strategies and for supervising the financial matters of the Committee. The Assembly has a membership of a maximum of 25 Swiss citizens. Members must speak the house language of French, but many also speak English and German as well. These Assembly members are co-opted for a period of four years, and there is no limit to the number of terms an individual member can serve. A three-quarters majority vote from all members is required for re-election after the third term, which acts as a motivation for members to remain active and productive.
In the early years, every Committee member was Genevan, Protestant, white, and male. The first woman, Renée-Marguerite Cramer, was co-opted in 1918. Since then, several women have attained the Vice Presidency, and the female proportion after the Cold War has been about 15%. The first non-Genevans were admitted in 1923, and one Jew has served in the Assembly.
While the rest of the Red Cross Movement many be multi-national, the Committee believes that its mono-national nature is an asset because the nationality in question is Swiss. Thanks to permanent Swiss neutrality, conflicting parties can be sure that no one from "the enemy" will be setting policy in Geneva. The Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 showed that even National Red Cross Societies can be biased and not maintain neutral humanitarianism.