Where you are born, your parent's beliefs, or your ethnic background should not make you a target.
Peter Maurer
Torture can destroy the social fabric of communities, degrade a society's institutions, and undermine the integrity of its political systems.
You can't expect humanitarian and development agencies to rebuild Syria. There is not enough money. There is not enough capacity. There are not enough skills.
As responsible politicians, you have to manage migration.
Wars are getting longer, they are more complex, and the humanitarian need is great.
To respond to people's needs, humanitarian action has evolved from a temporary fix to a long-term safety net.
The humanitarian ecosystem is diverse - not only is there a variety of traditional humanitarian actors, but the system should also embrace an increasing diversity of private sector actors.
Trust into leadership evaporates with communities when they see that their problems are not adequately addressed, neither at the national level nor at the international arena.
While the nature of warfare is changing and wars are moving into cities, they are also becoming longer and their consequences more impactful.
The young, the old, women, the disabled, the sick and the wounded are entitled to protection under international law. Too often, the ICRC's calls for those laws to be respected are ignored.
If you back out of a convention... you can't dodge your obligation. Torture is still not acceptable.
The principal cause of suffering during humanitarian crises is insufficient respect of applicable rules of international humanitarian law.
There is a clear business case for building the resilience and capacity of local communities, businesses, and institutions because a peaceful, educated, and productive population will stimulate economic growth in the long term.
Since 1989, public alarm at the prospect of atomic Armageddon has quietened, but the number of nuclear-armed states has increased, arsenals are being modernized, and powerful states remain convinced that a nuclear security umbrella is vital to national defense, domestic prestige, and geopolitical clout.
As conflicts last longer, as the scale of needs increase, we are having to adapt. There is an increasing blurring between immediate humanitarian assistance and long-term development needs.
We see a transformation of warfare from the big armies and battlefields in open spaces to a fragmentation of armed groups and smaller armies, which move into city centres, which increasingly become the theatre of warfare.
Local businesses and communities must be included from the very start in developing solutions to fragility, violence, and conflict.
Until the last nuclear weapon is eliminated, more must also be done to reduce the risk of a detonation. Nuclear-armed states should reduce the number of warheads on high alert and be clearer about the actions they are taking to prevent accidents.
We must understand the factors that cause fragility, violence, and conflict in order to develop solutions that will meaningfully reduce instability at its roots rather than merely addressing the symptoms.
Conflicts are not temporary interruptions: they are structural, socio-economic catastrophes, and funding must be allocated accordingly.
Fragility, violence, and conflict are complex. Fragility is influenced by a wide set of factors, many of which are deeply entrenched, such as high social and income inequality. The lines between criminal, inter-communal, and politically motivated violence are often blurred.
Self-reliance is not always possible; we have to acknowledge that there are situations of dramatic crisis which will force us to substitute non-existing public delivery systems.
The abuse of civilians and combatants has existed since the dawn of time.
New technologies are rapidly giving rise to unprecedented methods of warfare. Innovations that yesterday were science fiction could cause catastrophe tomorrow, including nanotechnologies, combat robots, and laser weapons.
Every year, we ask our donors to dig deeper. And every year, they gladly, generously comply. It is now up to us to find ways and means to forestall the day when they cannot - or will not. Or the consequences for people in war zones could be disastrous.
The International Committee of the Red Cross visits roughly half a million detainees in nearly 100 countries each year. It's our job to try to prevent and put an end to torture and ill-treatment.
What the hell is happening to the world when those who were at the origin of... international humanitarian law start questioning in public debates whether it has any relevance or should be respected?
We still have a strong commitment to our original mission, which is to protect and assist people who are suffering from the impact of violence, but the violence has changed its character, format, and pattern so that we are now responding year after year.
Economic activity can help repair war-torn societies, but if it's not conducted responsibly, it can also create or prolong violence. Companies and international organisations must help strengthen communities and overcome the trauma of violence.
Torture and other forms of cruel or humiliating treatment are an affront to humanity, and the physical and psychological scars can last a lifetime.
Experience shows that the reliance on illegal, immoral, and inhumane interrogation techniques is universally a very poor choice.
I have known Sepp Blatter, FIFA and football for a long time, and there are some fundamental values which FIFA and the ICRC share.
Even in war, everyone deserves to be treated humanely.
Humanitarian action cannot be held hostage to political ends.
It has always been clear that any use of nuclear weapons would have catastrophic humanitarian consequences.
Concrete steps are needed to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in military plans, doctrines, and policies.
Suffering does not change its face.
They say that truth is the first casualty of war. But there is another casualty as well: trust. As conflict escalates, trust between people and political leaders crumbles away as surely as night follows day.
Short-termism is no longer an option. We have to envisage humanitarian action with a medium- and long-term perspective.
Cities tend to be representations of societies: diversity and inequality find their extremes in urban settings. Yet, when war is added onto pre-existing inequalities, high levels of poverty, or even disaster, urban fragility increases exponentially, making it harder to absorb the shocks of warfare.
Humanitarian assistance, once conceived as a short-term relief effort, is increasingly the only substitute for long-term development work in protracted armed conflicts.
The fragility created by protracted conflicts, resulting in destroyed cities and dramatically insufficient services, is not something that humanitarian organizations can address comprehensively. Only political solutions can end armed conflicts.
Businesses operating in fragile or conflict-affected environments bear a responsibility to, at the very minimum, do no harm and avoid fuelling conflict or reinforcing fragility.
The creative capacity of the private sector should be harnessed to develop new and more effective ways to deliver humanitarian solutions.
Conflicts are increasingly causing devastation in densely populated urban centres rather than open battlefields, creating a host of new problems through the cumulative impact from the destruction of vital services like water and electricity.
People living through armed conflicts need infrastructure and services which will last, and the last thing on their mind is which budget line applies.
The relatively unpredictable flow of funds to humanitarian organizations, and the bureaucratic strings often attached to them, can have a highly negative impact on an organization's ability to plan and execute programmes effectively. We need to be able to rely on predictable income flows to plan sustainable programmes.
The Fourth Industrial Revolution does not just entail risks: it also brings solutions to humanitarian problems.
Not only does disability impact individual health and well-being, it also leads to social and economic exclusion.
We need to continue to modernise current humanitarian work while at the same time drive a more systemic shift in how we envision the operation and financing of humanitarian solutions.
