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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 November 2010
The International Committee of the Red Cross has witnessed in its work for war victims throughout the world the increasingly devastating effects for civilian populations of the proliferation of weapons, particularly small arms. The difficulties of providing humanitarian assistance in an environment where arms have become widely available to many segments of society are well known to most humanitarian relief agencies today. However, until recently the relationships between the availability of weapons, the worsening situation of civilians during and after conflict and the challenges of providing humanitarian assistance have not been addressed directly.
1 Meddings, David, “Weapons injuries during and after periods of conflict: retrospective analysis”, British Medical Journal, No. 7120, 29 November 1997, pp. 1417–1420.Google Scholar
2 Meeting of the Intergovernmental Group of Experts for the Protection of War Victims (Geneva, 1995), Google Scholar Recommendation VIII, as endorsed by Resolution 1 of the 26th International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, Geneva, 1995, Google Scholar reprinted in IRRC, No. 310, January-February 1996, pp. 88 and 58 respectively.
3 Resolution 8, section 4, Council of Delegates, Sevilla, 1997, reprinted in IRRC, No. 322, March 1998, pp. 152.
4 “Arms Transfers, Humanitarian Assistance and International Humanitarian Law”, ICRC document, 19 February 1998.
5 Convention on the prohibition of the use, stockpiling, production and transfer of anti-personnel mines and their destruction, of 18 September 1997, reprinted in IRRC, No. 320, September-October 1997, pp. 563–578.
