Actions taken:
To implement its commitment, the ICRC convened two expert meetings resulting in two reports between 2019-2024: Gendered Impacts of Armed Conflict and Implications for the Application of International Humanitarian Law (2022), and IHL and a Gender Perspective in the Planning and Conduct of Military Operations (2024). This pledge report sets out the related institutional context, an overview of the expert meetings and reports, and summarises the ICRC’s conclusion based on this work.
Context
This pledge was undertaken in the context of the ICRC’s coordinated effort to ensure its humanitarian activities are more inclusive. This entails recognising that diverse women, men, girls and boys can be affected differently by armed conflict, and promoting actions to take account of these differences in order to safeguard adequate protection for all.
In its legal work, the ICRC has focused particularly on how gender, age and disability can shape how an individual experiences armed conflict. Alongside the actions undertaken for this pledge that are detailed below, the ICRC has continued to incorporate a gender perspective into its approach to updating the Commentaries to the Geneva Conventions – ensuring that the articles of the Geneva Conventions are interpreted without discrimination based on gender. The ICRC has also developed legal and policy recommendations towards a more disability-inclusive IHL, notably by convening a series of regional consultations in 2022 that brought together persons with disabilities and armed forces. Another group of civilians that faces under-considered risks is children, so these formed the focus of the ICRC’s 2023 report entitled Childhood in Rubble: The Humanitarian Consequences of Urban Warfare for Children.
In its humanitarian operations too, during the pledge reporting period the ICRC undertook efforts to take better account of gender and diversity among conflict-affected populations. The 2019-2024 Institutional Strategy committed the ICRC to building relevant and sustainable humanitarian impact with people affected, and two new policies are particularly significant in this regard. The 2022 Inclusive Programming Policy sets out the ICRC’s commitment to incorporate an analysis of gender together with other diversity factors into its work, and the 2024 Gender, Diversity, and Inclusion Policy clarifies and frames the organization’s support for gender equality with an intersectional lens. The recent 2024-2027 Institutional Strategy continues this approach, identifying gender, diversity and inclusion as a cross-cutting approach necessary to ensure effective and responsible humanitarian action.
Expert meeting and reports
In June 2021, in implementation of this pledge and as part of its mandate to work for the understanding, dissemination of knowledge and faithful application of IHL, the ICRC convened an expert workshop to scope gendered impacts of armed conflict and identify the potential implications of these for the application of certain IHL obligations. The workshop brought together approximately 20 legal experts – both academics and humanitarian practitioners – to discuss the question of how gendered impacts of conflict have implications for the interpretation and application of IHL rules related to the conduct of hostilities in armed conflict, situations of occupation, as well as the role of the ICRC in relevant multilateral and humanitarian fora.
Based on this meeting, in June 2022 the ICRC published its report on Gendered Impacts of Armed Conflict and Implications for the Application of International Humanitarian Law, presenting the findings of the expert meeting and following peer review. The report urges States to apply a gender perspective to their IHL obligations to ensure gendered harm is better considered in contemporary armed conflicts, addressing a gender perspective in IHL’s conduct of hostilities rules (Chapter 1), and in the law of occupation (Chapter 2). It also reflected on the mixed history and role of the ICRC and IHL in addressing gendered impacts of armed conflict (Chapter 3). A blog post and podcast featuring the Director of International Law and Policy were promoted to accompany the report launch, alongside a 7-part blog series the ICRC published throughout summer 2021 on gender and IHL, featuring a range of influential voices on the topic. Bilateral advice to States from Europe, Africa and Asia as well as exchanges with researchers at SIPRI and UNIDIR complemented ongoing promotion; the ICRC president addressed the UN Security Council twice on the matter.
Subsequently, in continuation of this research, in October 2022 the ICRC co-organised a State expert meeting on ‘Understanding and Avoiding Gendered Harm from Military Operations in Armed Conflict’ on 13-14 October 2022 in Geneva. Co-organised with the Nordic Centre for Gender in Military Operations (of the Swedish Armed Forces) and the Swedish Red Cross, the meeting brought together 21 current or former military and State practitioners from across regions. Drawing from these diverse military perspectives, the meeting discussed good practices on gender perspective integration in military operations, and the role of IHL in the Women, Peace and Security global policy framework. These discussions formed the basis of the second report.
The second report was published in March 2024, entitled IHL and a Gender Perspective in the Planning and Conduct of Military Operations. Co-produced with the Nordic Centre for Gender in Military Operations and the Swedish Red Cross, peer review feedback on the draft was provided by the participating experts and it was launched at an event attended by over 370 people including academia, armed forces, government, and Red Cross and Red Crescent colleagues. The main purpose of the second report is to set out practical measures that militaries can take to better protect all civilians and improve compliance with IHL’s non-discrimination obligations, using a gender perspective. Chapter 1 gives examples of how numerous militaries are implementing such measures. Chapter 2 makes recommendations as to how the UN Security Council’s Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda and IHL can be implemented in a manner that reinforces their shared goals. Chapter 3 provides guidance on the incorporation of a gender perspective specifically in partnered military operations, given their proliferation in contemporary conflicts. Promotion of the report’s recommendations will continue throughout 2024.
Conclusion
IHL seeks to protect humanity from the worst excesses of war. This objective is best realized when parties are mindful of the reality of civilian life in the conflicts in which they intervene, and take account of the daily struggles arising from the gender inequalities that shape the lives of diverse women, men, girls and boys. As mandated by states, the ICRC seeks to ensure that the rules and norms aimed at restraining the destructive forces of armed conflict are known and applied faithfully by warring parties. Having concluded the work that the ICRC pledged to carry out in 2019, our core finding is that incorporating a gender perspective into the application and interpretation of IHL can support better respect for non-discrimination and the protection of civilians. The ICRC’s related recommendations for States and parties to armed conflict are summarised in its 2024 Report on IHL and the Challenges of Contemporary Armed Conflicts, wherein we ask armed forces to take seriously the protection of all civilians, equally.
