In a world where the principle of “might makes right” has come back to the fore, the seven Fundamental Principles of the Red Cross – especially those of humanity, impartiality and neutrality – offer a vital ethical framework. Frédéric Joli – whose pen is as agile as his words are powerful – calls for these principles to be shared beyond the humanitarian community, as a moral bulwark against the world’s increasing brutality.
“Freedom of the press only wears out when it is not used”, claims the French satirical weekly, Le Canard Enchaîné, in its motto. The same applies to international humanitarian law (IHL), which protects all victims of armed conflict, and not least to the ethics that underpin humanitarian action.
These ethics are summed up in the seven Fundamental and permanent Principles governing the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement:[1]The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement consists of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) which was established in 1863, the 191 National Red Cross and Red Crescent … Continue reading humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence, voluntary service, unity and universality. These principles constitute a mini code of conduct, a mnemonic technique for humanitarian action that goes beyond the Red Cross itself.
Today, the unabashed, unapologetic return of the maxim “might makes right”, a blatant disregard for IHL, a denial of climate change and an extreme polarisation of public opinion do not augur well for the future.
This increasing brutality of the world is compounded by a strange phenomenon that could be described as the “desensitisation of consciences by the unacceptable” via media commentators and social media. As a result, we are becoming accustomed to horror – immunised, mithridatised against a non-lethal dose of poison that is, ultimately, making the unacceptable acceptable.
In this unprecedented context of global upheaval, the seven Fundamental Principles of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement are taking on the guise of an ethical counter-culture. They do not stem from some abstract or disembodied humanism. They constitute a precise set of rules at the crossroads of international humanitarian action and law. They are principles for action and a compass for humanitarian commitment, be it individual or collective.
These principles, or at least the “humanity, impartiality and neutrality” triptych, should be known to all: not just humanitarians, but – and perhaps most importantly – journalists, teachers, politicians, columnists and opinion-makers too.
“The world’s upheaval that is shaping our lives and that seems to be shackling the prospects of future generations is compounded by a crisis of understanding, language and meaning.”
Because the world’s upheaval that is shaping our lives and that seems to be shackling the prospects of future generations is compounded by a crisis of understanding, language and meaning. My long experience as a spokesperson at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has enabled me to gauge the shortcomings of most opinion-makers and political decision-makers when it comes to the fundamentals of humanitarian action and international humanitarian law, as well as the ethics of commitment.
The return of “might makes right” and the erasure of the long term
We are living in paradoxical times. Never have wars been so thoroughly documented, never have images of suffering circulated so quickly. Yet never has the long-term view seemed so absent from public debate. As we scroll on our smartphones, a world with equal measures of horror and entertainment unfolds before our very eyes. This saturation of available brain time highlights the lack of perspective imposed by real time, combined with the inability to think. Armed conflicts and the serious violations of law that inevitably accompany them are reduced to simplified narratives, polarised to the extreme, where complexity becomes treason and nuance weakness.
Drawing on the principles of the Red Cross means putting forward a moral code, an ethics of humanitarian commitment. This was part of Henry Dunant’s simple but radical insight: even in war, not everything is allowed. This limit imposed by the principle of humanity and IHL is neither naive nor utopian – it preserves the collective memory of the worst breakdowns of the twentieth century and the first quarter of the twenty-first.
The seven Fundamental Principles of the Red Cross were formalised in 1965[2]The seven Fundamental and permanent Principles of the Red Cross were adopted at the Twentieth International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent in Vienna in 1965. They are the result of the … Continue reading – sixty years ago – but their spirit has been the driving force behind humanitarian action since the ICRC was founded almost one hundred years, or so earlier, in 1863. In his book A Memory of Solferino,[3]Henry Dunant, A Memory of Solferino, 1862, Geneva, 1st edition, not sold commercially. written the previous year, Henry Dunant had already put forward a set of principles summarising his thoughts to support his insights.
Admittedly, these principles will never prevent war, but when they are known and disseminated beyond the community of millions of Red Cross and Red Crescent volunteers, they offer the general public – living in turbulent times – a few pointers for nurturing critical thinking, a sense of morality and the need for commitment. In line with this history, one of the French Red Cross’s institutional priorities for 2026 is to promote – as widely as possible – the ethics of humanitarian commitment, underpinned by fundamental principles common to most organisations.
The moral rearmament of the humanitarian sector
The instability of the world looks set to continue and is likely to be marked by fierce conflicts, the trivialisation of extreme violence against civilian populations, and increasing contempt for IHL and for the international order that emerged after the Second World War. Admittedly, from the point of view of victims, this is nothing new – unfortunately. Yet even though the situation was no better before, it is now perfectly legitimate for us to express concern about the complete undermining of the ethical and legal compass of international humanitarian action and law.
At a time when we need a strong humanitarian sector, one that holds firm in its principles and is endowed with the full weight of its moral authority, we find ourselves with a weakened humanitarian sector that is more preoccupied – and rightly so, given the disastrous situation – with its funding than with taking a stand by reaffirming its ethical commitment.
At the same time, some of the most powerful states are openly flouting the rules that took so long and so much effort to get accepted – first and foremost, the four Geneva Conventions, which now require its 196 signatory states “to respect and enforce them in all circumstances”.
Will the notion of “might makes right” return as the default approach of international relations, relegating the protection of civilians, the wounded and prisoners to the status of adjustment variables? Faced with this downward spiral, managing emergency situations is no longer enough. We need to make it our political, civic and moral duty to reaffirm the fundamentals of humanitarian action and IHL publicly, as well as the primary responsibility of states to protect victims and respect the “rights of the weakest”. Similarly, humanitarian actors must reaffirm their principles of commitment, particularly the “humanity–impartiality–neutrality” triptych.
The origins of international action and law, long before Dunant
In this struggle for meaningful action, the French Red Cross – given its history and its close ties to emergency relief, solidarity, health, education and international action – has unique legitimacy. It can – and, indeed, must – help promote the seven Fundamental Principles of the international movement as chapters of a universal moral code, patiently constructed, long disputed, and more essential than ever.
This moral code was not born ex nihilo in the nineteenth century. It is part of a long intellectual and political tradition, in which France was one of the leading lights. Throughout the nineteenth century, figures of the First and Second French Empires, such as the military surgeons Dominique-Jean Larrey and his son Hippolyte, the great physician Pierre-François Percy, Henri Arrault, who wrote a convention on the fate of soldiers wounded in the field in 1861 (three years before the one written by a very young ICRC), and Dr Ferdinando Palasciano, a staunch advocate of introducing rules of law into conflicts, shaped what would become – with Dunant’s insight and activism – international humanitarian law and action. The aim was simple and iconoclastic in a tragic way: “to humanise war”.
It can be said that modern humanitarian action has its roots in the 18th century, the period known as the Age of Enlightenment. At the time, philosophers maintained that every human being – regardless of religion, social status or nationality – had natural rights. Reason was established as a superior principle to tradition, faith and arbitrariness. Above all, a decisive break was made with medieval charity, based as it was on individual and religious compassion. The protection of individuals gradually became a moral and political obligation, and no longer a mere act of virtue.
Montesquieu denounced the cruelty of sentences. As early as in 1764, Beccaria condemned torture and the death penalty. Rousseau made a seminal distinction between combatants and civilians, thereby heralding one of the future pillars of IHL. He also questioned the status of the wounded soldier who, once incapacitated, was “handed over to the hands of God”. These thoughts formed the basis of a new moral consciousness, which may well have originated in Europe but is now universal, especially since all the world’s states signed up to the Geneva Conventions – most of these states having also established a national relief society, a Red Cross or a Red Crescent.
The French Revolution was a turning point. With the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, a state affirmed, for the first time, that human dignity is a legal norm, not simply a moral value. Equal rights, individual freedom, popular sovereignty, universality: these principles broke with the old order. The abolition of privileges, the end of arbitrary jurisdiction and calls for the abolition of slavery would translate this extraordinary ambition into action.
However, this “utopian” universality was, to put it mildly, not free of contradictions and failures. Yet without the foundations laid by the Age of Enlightenment and the French Revolution, the Geneva Conventions would probably have struggled to emerge.
Ultimately, the Age of Enlightenment founded a universalist moral framework, the French Revolution transformed it into law, the nineteenth century organised it and the twentieth universalised it. But what about our century? Is the plan to destroy this long-standing moral construct brick by brick? What about the primacy of human dignity and the idea that suffering calls for a collective, organised, principled response?
At a time when force is trying to become the dominant language again, the moral rearmament of humanitarian work is not an intellectual luxury. It is a political necessity. Promoting awareness and understanding of these principles means reminding people that the rights of the weakest are not a simple humanitarian concession but the core of a democratic and universal heritage.
Humanity, impartiality and neutrality: a humanitarian triptych
Humanity is the overarching principle. Not only is it the source of all the other principles, but it is also the catalyst for IHL, the fundamental principle of setting limits on war and suffering. For these limits to be effective, intangible rules must be put in place that belligerents must “respect and enforce”.
Who better than Albucasis to teach us about impartiality? In one of his chronicles, this great tenth-century Muslim surgeon recounts the following:
“I removed another [arrow] from a Jew, which had entered the orbital cavity from underneath the lower eyelid: it had penetrated to the point that I could only grasp the small end where it joined the wood. […] The Jew healed and no harm was done to his eye. I pulled another one out of a Christian’s throat. It was an Arabian arrow, with barbs. I made an incision above, between the jugular veins, it had penetrated deeply into the throat: I operated carefully and managed to extract it. The Christian was saved and recovered.” (our translation from the French, editor’s note)
That was eleven centuries ago. Long before the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, and long before the “French Doctors” movement, Albucasis was saying something simple: there is no such thing as a good or bad victim. There are just victims.
Then there is neutrality, a tool created to gain access to victims but which is undoubtedly, of all the principles, the most attacked, the most contested, but also the most misunderstood. Neutrality can become synonymous with passivity or complicity, even though it was originally understood from the victim’s point of view: the wounded soldier, as he is now incapable of fighting and therefore no longer poses a threat to the opponent, “no longer belongs” to one of the two camps – he is “neutral” and, therefore, so is the one who rescues him. Today, neutrality does not repudiate this concept. With regard to the ICRC, a “neutral intermediary in armed conflicts”, neutrality, backed by the confidentiality of negotiations with belligerents, increases, in theory, the chances of gaining access to victims, assisting the civilian population or visiting detainees.
Independence, voluntary service, unity and universality: principles that underpin the structure of the Movement
It is not easy for a national society of the Red Cross or Red Crescent to assert the principle of independence when all of them, throughout the world, have a statutory role as auxiliaries of public authorities. The independence asserted here is primarily that of the Movement (and therefore of all the entities that comprise it). Acting as an auxiliary to public authorities, however, does not necessarily mean submission. Providing guidance and advice – be it by participating in relief or solidarity plans, in healthcare activities, or by applying IHL – constitutes the organisation’s daily life. The principle of voluntary service – which is not particularly problematic, but is hugely symbolic – emphasises the selfless nature of humanitarian commitment. As for unity, we are reminded of the rule that there can only be one national relief agency per state – and there are currently 191 of them, forming the largest humanitarian network in the world… Finally, the principle of universality completes the structure, proclaiming that national relief societies are equal among themselves, rather like the member states of the United Nations (UN), which is also much maligned these days.
The seven principles that we have briefly outlined are, admittedly, open to many interpretations, but they have the indisputable merit of bringing together roughly seventeen million volunteers from all cultures, religions and nationalities throughout the world.
A plea for educating the general public about humanitarian principles
Humanitarian aid is in bad shape, devastated, in the space of just a few months, by the consequences of drastic cuts in funding from the United States, but also in European funding. From non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to UN agencies – not to mention the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement – the entire humanitarian aid sector appears to be in a state of shock, even though it is largely recovering and rallying. Is this the end of forty years of professionalisation of humanitarian action and of all its debates, progress and doubts? What was it all for?
“The entire humanitarian aid sector appears to be in a state of shock, even though it is largely recovering and rallying.”
If the world is losing its moral compass, as news bulletins remind us every day, what about its humanitarian compass? Perhaps the time has come to launch a wide-ranging debate on the principles and fundamentals that underpin humanitarian commitment, with the aim of upholding them beyond a self-segregating humanitarian community. Humanitarian principles must be part of general knowledge and become a priority goal of popular education.
Translated from the French by Derek Scoins
