Dear Berry, dear Thomas, Dear all, (1) As agreed during last week's Working Group call, we have reviewed the legislation of the 21 countries/High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Conventions, which National Red Cross or Red Crescent Societies have requested the reservation of the words/designations "Red Cross" or "Red Crescent", and thus, as a variant of their usual or commonly used name. These include Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Cambodia, China, Czech Republic, Finland, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Lithuania, Norway, Malaysia, The Netherlands, Palestine, Paraguay, Somalia, Sweden, Tanzania, Turkey and Ukraine. Once again, I would like to emphasize that all High Contracting Parties to the 1949 Geneva Conventions (196 in total) enjoy a formal obligation to protect the designations and names "Red Cross" and "Red Crescent" from all forms of unauthorized or improper use. […] In many jurisdictions, such protections apply directly in the domestic legal order without the need to adopt national implementing legislation. This is generally the case in States of the Civil Law tradition that are generaly qualified as "monist legal systems". For those States, the prohibitions on misuse of the names apply, in principle, directly in the national legal order. The situation is different in States of the Common Law tradition, which habitually require an international treaty norm to be translated into the domestic legal order through the adoption of domestic implementation legislation. These are generally referred to as "dualist legal systems". The supremacy of international law is generally considered to apply however in dualist legal orders and it is generally understood that a State cannot evoke municipal law as the reason for the non-fullfilment or for evading its international obligations. Without entering into the "monist" vs "dualist" debate, it should be noted that a majority of the 21 States on the list, would mostly qualify as Monist legal orders. (2) The attached list includes relevant extracts of national legislation in force in the above mentioned States confirming either or both i) the entitlement of the National Society in the country to make use of the designation or words "Red Cross" or "Red Crescent"; ii) the protections of the designations and names "Red Cross" and "Red Crescent" (by implication in the official national language or languages). We have not systematically included the translation of those articles in national languages, but these are available on our Website and national implementation database. In several cases, we were not able to find national legislation protecting the designations of the emblems, but only of the emblems themselves - this stands as an anomaly or as an omission by the national legislator. We would hence recommend however that the GNSO confirm the reservations of the designations/names "Red Cross" and "Red Crescent" for all 21 National Societies as one of their commonly used names - bearing in mind, at a minimum, the good faith duty for States to abide by their conventional obligations under the 1949 Geneva Conventions (even if national implementing legislation may be lacking). NB: For memory, we had provided in the past an extensive list (and extracts) of national laws from different States protecting the "Red Cross" and "Red Crescent" designations (including the United States, the UK, etc.). Please refer in this regard to our message of 6 September 2017. Kind regards, Stéphane Stéphane J. Hankins Legal adviser Cooperation and coordination within the Movement International Committee of the Red Cross Tel (direct line): ++0041 22 730 24 19 =============================================================================== The ICRC - working to protect and assist people affected by armed conflict and other situations of violence. Find out more: www.icrc.org This e-mail is intended for the named recipient(s) only. Its contents are confidential and may only be retained by the named recipient (s) and may only be copied or disclosed with the consent of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). If you are not an intended recipient please delete this e-mail and notify the sender. ===============================================================================
