Actions taken:
Republic of Poland and its National Red Cross Society (PRC) maintaining a long-standing partnership relations in the promotion, dissemination and implementation of international humanitarian law, deem necessary to stress the importance of the red cross emblem recognition and protection at the national level. Therefore, the Republic of Poland and its National Red Cross Society pledge to strengthen legal mechanisms, undertake promotional and educational activities in area of red cross emblem protection.
The above obligation continues to be fulfilled by Poland with no variation or interruption. To this end, Poland conducts ongoing analyses in relation to the above-described problem with a view to comprehensively regulate the matter.
In addition, the Polish Red Cross runs the national Red Cross Emblem Protection Committee, which is composed of representatives of the National Society, the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the State Patent Office, pharmaceutical supervision and lawyers. It implements the following objectives: advocacy of the role and meaning of the Red Cross emblem (on average, about 20 messages per year based on case studies from the country and the world), running trainings and lectures for PRC employees and volunteers, military services, students of law and international relations (an average of about 15 trainings/lectures per year), editing documents and preparing publications on the emblem protection (in 2016, PRC translated and published a brochure “Emblems of humanity” of the International Committee of the Red Cross), provides opinion on applications for permission to use the emblem (on average, about 20 applications per year, including consultations of labels and logotypes graphic designs), interventions in case of abuse or misuse of the emblem by institutions, companies, media and private individuals in the country in order to stop them (on average, it is about 40 cases per year, they most often in the pharmacy (pharmacy graphics on medicine packages), cosmetics (graphics on cosmetics packages), in the clothing industry (prints on clothing) and in the entertainment industry (artistic creation linked with the slogan “first aid”).
