IRRC No. 240
Can the Red Cross contribute to safeguarding peace?
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Abstract
Can the Red Cross help to maintain peace and should it not, alongside its humanitarian role, also fulfil a mission of peace? This is far from being a new consideration, raised by recent developments in the peace movement and by demonstrations in favour of peace.Whether the Red Cross, by its very nature, is a factor for peace; whether its humanitarian work should finally result in eliminating war, are questions as old as the idea of the Red Cross itself. Very early on, Henry Dunant declared that it was not enough to relieve the suffering of victims of war but that war itself should be banned.