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Speech given by Mr Peter Maurer, President of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Maison de la Paix, Geneva, 2 October 2014
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 January 2016
The following speech was given by the President of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Peter Maurer, on 2 October 2014 at the Maison de la Paix in Geneva during a conference organized by the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies. Maurer recalled the continued relevance and importance of the humanitarian principles and warned that a lack of common understanding, as well as politicized uses of the principles, jeopardizes the scope and scale of humanitarian action. The speech launched the ICRC's Second Research and Debate Cycle on Principles Guiding Humanitarian Action. Throughout 2015 – the year of the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the Fundamental Principles of the Red Cross and Red Movement (the Movement) and of the 32nd International Conference of the Movement, and leading to the World Humanitarian Summit in 2016 – the Research and Debate Cycyle has gathered key actors in the humanitarian field during public events and high-level conferences.1 These events have encouraged substantive discussions on the principles among experts from the Movement, the humanitarian, governmental and academic fields, and other informed participants.
1 For more information on the Second Research and Debate Cycle and to watch the recordings of some of the events, see: www.icrc.org/en/cycle-principles (all internet references were accessed in October 2015).
2 Editor's note: The Maison de la Paix (House of Peace) is the main building of the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva and also hosts other organizations working on international issues. For more information, see: http://graduateinstitute.ch/maisondelapaix.
3 Editor's note: The open letter is available at: www.lettertobaghdadi.com.
4 Editor's note: This is an art and history museum in Geneva, which served as the headquarters of the International Prisoners-of-War Agency set up by the ICRC in 1914 to centralize information about, and organize the dispatch of relief parcels to, prisoners of war during the First World War. In 2013, to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the ICRC, the Musée Rath organized an exhibition entitled “Humanizing War?”, illustrating key moments in the evolution of warfare and the history of the organization.
