How to plan a birthday party: Reflecting on how African voices have shaped IHL over the last 75 years

Introduction

In the months leading up to the 75^th anniversary of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) embraced its role as the lead party planner, ensuring that the universal ratification status of the Geneva Conventions would also mean a universal celebration[1].

Any good party planner knows the value of having a theme, a unifying concept or idea that sets the tone and that makes people come together. Therefore, many ICRC legal advisers, from South Africa to Geneva, paused to reflect on the achievements, shortcomings and future of the Geneva Conventions and on their universality. Acknowledging the divided state of the world, the 75^th celebration of the cornerstone treaties of international humanitarian law (IHL) was an opportunity not to be missed to remind the world that every state has decided that limiting the human cost of war is their legal obligation. Recognizing that the Geneva Conventions are one set of rules we all agree on, there is an innate theme of the Geneva Conventions: IHL is the formal expression of universally shared, deeply held human values.

Beyond the celebration birthdays also provide us with a moment to take stock, to reflect and to give us pause to consider the journey so far. As ICRC legal advisers in charge of advising African states on IHL, in the months leading to the 75^th anniversary of the Geneva Conventions we had to reconcile today’s universality with the fact that only Ethiopia and Egypt represented the African continent during the negotiations of the Conventions back in the 1940s; most of the other African states were still under colonial rule. It felt important to explore how and to what extent this initial lack of representativeness has evolved over the years. Given the fact that currently all states, including African states after independence, have ratified the Geneva Conventions, we could feel some level of content. However, we wanted to go beyond the figures: we wanted to understand how African voices have shaped and defined the IHL that we know today, and what role the ICRC has played in the process. The ICRC Archives and Library (which also treasures the drafting documents of the Geneva Conventions and the Additional Protocols) seemed the right places to go.

The 1949 Geneva Conventions

In the first half of the twentieth century, the participation of African voices to the drafting of IHL treaties remained limited to the very few independent African states, in particular Egypt and Ethiopia, which joined the negotiations of the 1925 Geneva Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare, as well as the negotiations of the 1949 Geneva Conventions.[2] During the Diplomatic Conference which led to the latter, Egypt and Ethiopia actively participated in the discussions of Committee III, which drafted the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War. Egypt and Ethiopia supported an amendment aimed at reinforcing state obligations to ensure child protection, in what is now article 24 (measures relating to child welfare) of the Convention.[3] Ethiopia also submitted, together with other states, an amendment to improve the minimum standards regarding the working conditions of internees, now article 95 (working conditions) of the Convention.[4] The two amendments were not accepted as such; the wording which finally made it to the Geneva Convention is less protective than the proposed amendments, but more protective than the original text presented by the Drafting Committee.[5]

Anti-colonial wars

In the second half of the twentieth century, the ICRC started to look beyond states, offering its services to and discussing IHL with national liberation movements. This shift was slow and unveiled some tensions “between the racial prejudices and the universalistic ambitions” of the ICRC.[6] In the 1950s, the ICRC decided not to intervene in many anti-colonial wars ongoing in Sub-Saharan Africa , notably in Kenya and in South Africa, qualifying them as “riots” and hence falling outside the ICRC’s mandate and the scope of the Geneva Conventions.[7] Nevertheless, some internal voices dissented with this approach. In 1954, Pierre Gaillard, delegate for the Maghreb and the Middle East, observed that the organization needed to intervene in “internal troubles of a certain gravity, such as those occurring in Northern Africa and in Kenya” and that we “cannot remain indifferent in front of these situations”.[8] A few years later, some ICRC staff expressly stigmatized the double standard and the racial bias underlying this decision:

“It should also be remembered that in Hungary and Cuba, for example, where the ICRC intervened, the rebellion was also preceded by riots; if the events that recently occurred in the Union of South Africa had taken place in a region populated solely by whites, the ICRC might perhaps reason somewhat differently.”[9]

In 1960, as anti-colonial wars spread across Africa, the ICRC finally decided to send two delegates, Samuel Gonard and George Hoffman, to Southern and Eastern Africa,[10] to assess the humanitarian situation and the possibility for the ICRC to promote the Geneva Conventions in these areas. Their report concluded that “la masse noire” was naturally cruel and childish, without any knowledge of humanitarianism or of voluntarism.[11] The fact that, during the mission, Gonard and Hoffman interviewed dozens of authorities from the colonial administrations, but only a very small number of native Africans, did not help them overcome such racial prejudices. Furthermore, while describing in detail the misery of the “masse noire” – as presented to them by the (colonial) interviewees – they never addressed the impact of decades of colonial domination.[12] Whenever the two delegates encountered information contradicting this narrative of racial inferiority, they did not further investigate it or reflect it in their conclusions. For example, they did not seem to give any significance to the comments of the Chef-coutumier Fundikira, president of the newly established Red Cross of Tanganyika and one of the very few African leaders that they met. Interestingly, Fundikira underlined the proximity between the Geneva Conventions and the well-established humanitarian traditions of his people:

“Mr. Fundikira is convinced that the religion of Islam, established in Tanganyika long before the Germans and British settled there, is the source of the tolerance that smoothed over the difficulties of tribal rivalries. He uses the expression “brotherhood” of Islam.”[13]

However, it should be emphasized that this was not everyone’s vision within the ICRC. During the same period, another ICRC delegate, François de Reynold, visited the newly independent states in Western Africa[14] and met ministers of the new governments and representatives of the new National Red Cross Societies. In his report, De Reynold highlighted that his local contacts had shown a remarkable knowledge of humanitarianism and of the Red Cross Movement,[15] and he expressed admiration and respect for the population.[16]

Sound archive: Les perspectives d’avenir des Sociétés de la Croix-Rouge dans le Tiers-Monde et en Afrique. April 1965. ©ICRC. V-S-10022-A-04.

In the following years, the ICRC established its presence in Africa, with more frequent visits from Geneva and a new delegation in Harare (then Salisbury),[17] implicitly acknowledging that, regardless of any legal classification, the fighting against colonial domination in Africa “merited” the same attention as the uprisings occurring in other parts of the world. The ICRC carried out humanitarian activities in various forms to the benefit of movements of national liberation, such as delivering medical supplies and visiting members of liberation movements who were detained. While the most famous examples are the ICRC’s decades-long visits to Nelson Mandela and to other political prisoners in South Africa,[18] similar humanitarian activities were undertaken elsewhere, especially in the Portuguese colonies. From 1966, following intense negotiations with Lisbon, the ICRC visited political prisoners in Angola, Mozambique and Guinea. From 1973, the ICRC and the Swedish Red Cross provided medical supplies to national liberation movements in Portuguese colonies and beyond (e.g., in Zimbabwe and South Africa),^[19] overcoming some internal concerns that such humanitarian aid could have been perceived as “political” and therefore affect ICRC’s neutrality.[20]

1977 Additional Protocols

The operational proximity of the ICRC with newly independent African states and with liberation movements also resulted in a “legal” proximity. The ICRC engaged in discussions on IHL and protection issues with national liberation movements’ leaders, obtaining for example in 1966 the authorization for Portuguese soldiers detained by the Partido Africano para a Independência da Guiné e Cabo Verde in Bissau and Conakry to correspond with their family members.[21] In the same year Eduardo Mondlane, leader of the Frente de Libertação de Moçambique, reached out to the ICRC to express his commitment to comply with the Geneva Conventions.^[22]

Moreover, the ICRC advocated to adapt IHL to wars of national liberation and to enlarge the number of people who could benefit from it.[23] In 1968, the United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution 2444 (XXIII) which, inter alia, invited the Secretary-General, in consultation with the ICRC, to study steps which could be taken to secure the better application of existing IHL rules in all armed conflicts, as well as the need for additional instruments.[24] To achieve this goal, the ICRC appointed an ad-hoc committee of experts and presented its final report at the 21st International Conference of the Red Cross and the Red Crescent Movement in Istanbul in 1969. The experts found that “according to a fairly widespread opinion today, ‘wars of liberation’ are not or should not be forbidden” and that “the status of war prisoners should be granted to combatants for freedom, in accordance with the Geneva Conventions of 1949, without their being subject to any penal sanctions”.[25] The 21st International Conference adopted resolution XIII, requesting the ICRC to propose rules to strengthen the existing IHL. The ICRC prepared two draft Protocols, submitted to the 22nd International Conference of the Red Cross in Tehran in 1973, which served as a basis for discussion at the 1974–1977 Diplomatic Conference on the Reaffirmation and Development of International Humanitarian Law Applicable in Armed Conflicts.^[26]

Taking place 25 years after the signing of the Geneva Conventions in 1949, the guest list at the Diplomatic Conference highlighted a significant departure from the more restricted negotiation table of the Geneva Conventions. Seven hundred delegates, representing 126 states, including from Asia, Africa and Latin America, were in attendance.[27] In addition, national liberation movements from Africa[28] as well as the Palestine Liberation Organization, participated as observers, without the right to vote.[29] One of the major successes during the Conference, achieved with the voting power of states from the so called “Global South”, was the recognition in Additional Protocol I that IHL applies to “armed conflicts in which peoples are fighting against colonial domination and alien occupation and against racist regimes in the exercise of their right of self-determination”.[30] Such provision had not been included in the draft Protocol I presented by the ICRC, because the drafters were divided on the matter; however, they expressly called on the Diplomatic Conference to consider the issue. [31]

Another achievement of national liberation movements at the Diplomatic Conference was the recognition of the combatant status (and therefore the entitlement to prisoner of war status) in “situations where, owing to the nature of the hostilities, an armed combatant cannot distinguish himself from the civilian population” in Additional Protocol I, if some specific conditions are met.^[32] This provision was introduced bearing in mind the circumstance that national liberation movements typically operate within the civilian population.[33] This new provision was in line with the ICRC draft of Additional Protocol I, which had proposed to include a new category of prisoners of war, namely “members of organized liberation movements”.[34]

While the Geneva Conventions are often presented as the legacy of “five founding” Swissmen,^[35] the innovations introduced by Additional Protocol I reflect the achievements of liberation movements and newly independent states as a collectivity comprised of people from different places united against colonial oppression, and committed to shape the rules of law around their shared suffering.[36] Commenting on the ideas behind these innovations, one expert has observed that:

“in practical terms, these ideas stood to increase the odds of national liberation success by committing imperial powers to observe some war-making restraints, as well as judicial guarantees and humanitarian protections towards colonial rebels”.^[37]

Hence, the story of the Protocols and their drafting has also been depicted as the “decolonization of the Geneva Conventions”, since anti-colonial delegates reshaped IHL norms to ensure that they reflected the reality of anti-colonial struggles. These delegates did not reject IHL as such, but they endeavored (and succeeded) to align it with the anti-colonial vision held by the global majority and enshrined in the General Assembly 1968 resolution. Such vision eventually overpowered the one of many Western delegates, which initially tried to oppose some of the proposed amendments.[38]

“Please, finish the work that my generation should have finished”

The operational and legal proximity of the ICRC with liberation movements and the established presence of the organization in many of the newly independent African states further triggered the organization’s interest in endogenous humanitarian traditions. In the 1970s, under the leadership of Jacques Moreillon, Director of the ICRC Principles and Law Department, the ICRC asked Yolande Diallo, a young Senegalese scholar, to research the correlations between the principles of IHL and the humanitarian principles underlying African traditions. Diallo identified several connections and found that “the idea of respect for human dignity and of unselfish help for those who suffer, is an inseparable part of man’s heritage.”[39] Such scholarship grew in the 1980s, thanks to the contributions of Emmanuel Bello[40] and Mutoy Mubiala[41], both published in the International Review of the Red Cross.

To learn more about the ICRC’s historical perspective concerning the African continent, after the research in the Archives and in the Library, we interviewed Jacques Moreillon, who shared with us his unique experience with African liberation movement[42] and connected us with Yolande Diallo. We were already familiar with her work, which had inspired the ICRC Delegation of Pretoria in the preparation of the “Tool on African Traditions and the Preservation of Humanity” in 2016,^[43] but we never had the chance to meet her. When we contacted her, she generously gave us some very useful practical tips to conduct further research on humanitarian rules within African traditions. For example, she suggested to consider non-legal texts, such as children’s stories books, because some principles have been “codified” as lessons for the younger generations. She also named some specific warriors’ groups that have left a legacy of humanitarian traditions worth exploring. She concluded the call with these words: “please finish the work that my generation should have finished”. [44]

Through our research in the Archives and the follow-up interviews, we also discovered that in the 1980s, the ICRC had unsuccessfully tried to organize a seminar on African traditions and IHL in Dakar. This unaccomplished project, together with the words of Yolande Diallo, gave us the idea for the 75^th anniversary of the Geneva Conventions. We felt that the anniversary was an opportunity for the ICRC to highlight the contribution of different voices in shaping the principle of humanity. On 25 May 2024, we brought together different generations of experts for a day of study, followed by a public conference, around the theme: “Geneva convention at 75: a common heritage of humanity”.[45] The participants explored the humanitarian principles found in different traditions, cultures and religions, the diversity of the voices reflected in the Geneva Conventions and even more so in the Additional Protocols, the need to hold on -today more than ever- to IHL as a set of shared human values.

The challenges to finish the work

In our endeavor to follow Madame Diallo’s plea, and to further our study on African contributions to today’s IHL, we had to overcome challenges that other researchers might not be able to address. First, we had to physically visit the ICRC Archives in Geneva to search for the relevant documents. Thankfully, one of us was already based in Geneva; otherwise, we would have had to organize travel and accommodation to this very expensive city. Second, we had to digitize the documents of interest, asking the archivists to scan the documents for us. This operation implied opening different dossiers and going through them manually, handling old and fragile sheets. Despite all caution, such activity might pose security and preservation risks for the documents treasured in the Archives. Finally, we had to rely on AI online tools to transcribe the relevant documents that we had scanned. This time-consuming and costly exercise was essential to transform the documents, including handwritten ones, into an easily readable and searchable text. Transcribing also helped us translate the documents into English, as many of them were in French. The ICRC’s decision to launch a systematic digitization of the Archives in 2026[46] will improve access for researchers in the future, adding to the sources on that are already available on-line through the ICRC Library[47]

Final remarks

The awareness of the past, that we achieved through the research in the Archives and the Library, has helped us shape our work in the present and define it in the future. Today, when we present IHL as a body of law reflecting universally shared, deeply held human values, we are very aware of the evolution and discussions around the Geneva Conventions and later the Additional Protocols, and we know to what extent African peoples fought for such universality. We also have an historical understanding of the long way the ICRC has come, from Gonard’s and Hoffman’s comments about “la masse noire”, to advocacy aimed at ensuring that African voices were reflected in the 1977 Additional Protocols. Furthermore, we have a stronger vision of the role that ICRC can play in Africa today, when it comes to the promotion of IHL: we no longer focus only to the codification process that took place in Geneva, but we also pay tribute to the humanitarian principles underlying different African traditions and cultures. For example, the tips of Yolande Diallo and the outcome of the 2024 colloquium helped the ICRC in Pretoria develop a second version of the Tool on African Traditions and the Preservation of Humanity in War.[48] The Geneva Conventions next key milestone will be the celebration of its 80th birthday, in 2029. By that date, we hope that more and more people will have been able to access the ICRC Archives, in particular African researchers and students. Even if these Archives are in Geneva, they tell an important part of African history.[49]

[1] We thank Cédric Cotter, Daniel Palmieri, Charlotte Mohr, Camille Meyre and all Archives and Library staff for their invaluable support during our research. We also thank Jacques Moreillon and Yolande Diallo for their patience, time and encouragement, which made this research possible.

[2] Egypt also joined the negotiations and signed the 1929 Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War.

[3] The original text proposed by the Drafting Committee read: “They [the Contracting Parties] shall furthermore examine the opportunity of identifying all children under twelve, either by the wearing of identity discs or by some other means.”. The amendment, proposed by the Soviet Union and supported by other states including Egypt and Ethiopia, read: “They shall furthermore ensure that all children under the age of twelve are identified…. etc”. See Final Record of the Diplomatic Conference, Vol. II, section A, , Minutes of the 32^nd meeting of Committee III, 10 June 1949, pp. 708-710, https://library.icrc.org/library/docs/CD/CD_1949_ACTES_ENG_21.pdf#page=725; https://library.icrc.org/library/docs/CD/CD_1949_COMM3_CR28.pdf

[4] The amendment added in the fourth paragraph of the draft article the word “all” before the words “working conditions” and deleted the two following passages: “In conformity with its national legislation” and “In determining wages, account may be taken of the fact that the Detaining Power has to provide for the internee’s maintenance and for the medical attention his state of health may require”. See Final record of the Diplomatic Conference of Geneva of 1949, Vol. III, p. 151, https://library.icrc.org/library/docs/CD/CD_1949_ACTES_ENG_30.pdf#search=%22ethiopia%22&page=52

[5] For child protection, the final wording, proposed by the Holy See and adopted by majority, reads: “They shall, furthermore, endeavour to arrange for all children under…”. See Final Record of the Diplomatic Conference, Vol. II, section A, Minutes of the 32nd meeting of Committee III, 10 June 1949 p. 710, https://library.icrc.org/library/docs/CD/CD_1949_ACTES_ENG_21.pdf#search=%22ETHIOPIA%22&page=10. As for internees working condition, the final wording, tasked to a special Working Party and unanimously adopted, kept the word “all” before “working conditions”, but substantially re-introduced the two passaged removed by the amendment. See Final Record of the Diplomatic Conference, Vol. II, section A, Report of Committee III to the Plenary Assembly of the Diplomatic Conference of Geneva, pp. 838-839, https://library.icrc.org/library/docs/CD/CD_1949_ACTES_ENG_21.pdf#page=725.

[6] Marie-Luce Desgrandchamps, “Entre ambitions universalistes et préjugés raciaux. La mission du Comité international de la Croix Rouge en Afrique méridionale et centrale au début des années 1960”, Histoire@Politique, 41, 2020. https://journals.openedition.org/histoirepolitique/313

[7] For a more detailed criticism of ICRC’s position concerning anti-colonial wars in the 1950s, see Yolanda Pringle, “Humanitarianism, Race and Denial: The International Committee of the Red Cross and Kenya’s Mau Mau Rebellion, 1952–60”, History Workshop Journal, 84 (1), 2017, pp. 89–107, https://library.ext.icrc.org/library/docs/RESTRICTEDACCESS/44260.pdf For a comparison between the ICRC’s approach in Sub-Saharan Africa and its much more proactive action in Algeria, see Fabian Klose, “The Colonial Testing Ground: The International Committee of the Red Cross and the Violent End of Empire”, Humanity Journal, 10 June 2014. https://humanityjournal.org/issue2-1/the-colonial-testing-ground-the-international-committee-of-the-red-cross-and-the-violent-end-of-empire/

[8]Confidential letter by P. Gaillard to the ICRC Delegate C. Vautier, December 13, 1954, ACICR, B AG 209 008–001. Translation by the authors.

[9] ACICR, Conseil de la présidence, séance 21 avril 1960. https://archives.icrc.org/Details/archive/110032266 Translation by the authors.

[10] Between February and April 1962, the two delegates visited Kenya, Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), Nyasaland (now Malawi), Tanganyika (now Tanzania), Congo Brazzaville, Katanga (now part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)

[11] ACICR, B AG 209 003-003, Rapport de mission en Afrique équatoriale et centrale du délégué Georges Hoffmann et du membre du CICR Samuel Gonard , 5 février-4 avril 1962. https://archives.icrc.org/Details/archive/110060677

[12]Stefano Picciaredda, La Croce rossa alla prova dell’Africa, 2022, pp. 63-64

[13] ACICR, B AG 209 003-003, Rapport de mission en Afrique équatoriale et centrale du délégué Georges Hoffmann et du membre du CICR Samuel Gonard, 5 février-4 avril 1962. https://archives.icrc.org/Details/archive/110060677 Translation by the authors.

[14] Senegal, Ivory Coast, Togo and Guinea.

[15]ACICR, B AG 251 003-007, Mission d’information et de dialogue de François de Reynold au Togo, au Sénégal, en Côte d’Ivoire et en Guinée, 23 avril-13 mai 1962, participation aux fêtes du centenaire de la Croix-Rouge (8 mai) organisées par la Croix-Rouge togolaise, https://archives.icrc.org/Details/archive/110069819

[16] Interview to François de Reynold, V-S-10022-A-04, Les perspectives d’avenir des Sociétés de la Croix-Rouge dans le Tiers-Monde et en Afrique, April 1965, https://avarchives.icrc.org/Sound/6319

[17] Until that time, the ICRC had only one delegation in Africa, in Kinshasa (then called Leopoldville), since the Congo crisis of 1960. See Desgrandchamps, Entre ambitions universalistes et préjugés raciaux. La mission du Comité international de la Croix Rouge en Afrique méridionale et centrale au début des années 1960, p. 10.

[18] See for example Andrew Thompson, “Restoring hope where all hope was lost: Nelson Mandela, the ICRC and the protection of political detainees in apartheid South Africa”, International Review of the Red Cross, 98 (3), 2016, pp. 799-829, https://international-review.icrc.org/sites/default/files/irrc-903-6.pdf”,

[19] Partido Africano para a Independência da Guiné e Cabo Verde, Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola, Frente Nacional de Libertação de Angola, Frente de Libertação de Moçambique, Comité Revolucionário de Moçambique, Zimbabwe African People’s Union, Front for the Liberation of Zimbabwe, African National Congress. See CICR, Rapport d’activité 1973, p. 35, https://www.e-periodica.ch/digbib/view?pid=crf-003%3A1973%3A0%3A%3A71

[20] Stefano Picciaredda, La Croce rossa alla prova dell’Africa, pp. 128-129

[21] Ibid., p. 126.

[22] ACICR, CP, 27-1-1966

[23] ACICR, CP, 28-01-1971

[24]United Nations, General Assembly, resolution 2444 (XXIII), https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/un-res-2444-xxiii-1968/resolution?activeTab=

[25] Reaffirmation and development of the laws and customs applicable in armed conflicts, Report submitted by the ICRC at the 21^st International Conference of the Red Cross, Istanbul, 1969, p. 43 and p. 105, https://library.icrc.org/library/docs/CI/CI_1969_006_ENG_008_HD.pdf

[26] Diplomatic Conference on the Reaffirmation and Development of International Humanitarian Law Applicable in Armed Conflicts (Summary of Work), 1974, p. 228-229, https://international-review.icrc.org/sites/default/files/S0020860400065724a.pdf

[27] Diplomatic Conference on the Reaffirmation and Development of International Humanitarian Law Applicable in Armed Conflicts (Summary of Work), https://international-review.icrc.org/sites/default/files/S0020860400065724a.pdf#:~:text=The%20Diplomatic%20Conference%2C%20convened%20by%20the%20Swiss,Arab%20League%20and%20the%20Council%20of%20Europe, p. 227.

[28] The Panafricanist Congress and the African National Congress of South Africa, the African National Council of Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe African People’s Union and the Zimbabwe African National Union, the Angola National Liberation Front and the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola, Mozambique Liberation Front, South-West Africa People’s Organization and the Seychelles People’s United Party

[29] ACICR, CE, 02-08-1973 and ACICR, CE, 31-01-1974. See also Resolution 3, Official Records of the Diplomatic Conference on the Reaffirmation and Development of the International Humanitarian law Applicable in Armed Conflicts (1974-1977), p. 7, https://library.icrc.org/library/docs/CD/CD_1977_ACTES_ENG_01.pdf

[30] Art. 1, para 4, Additional Protocol I.

[31] Draft Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949: Commentary, p. 6. https://library.icrc.org/library/docs/DOC/DOC_00093.pdf

[32] Art. 44, para 3, Additional Protocol I.

[33] See Commentary to Additional Protocol I, para 1698, https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/api-1977/article-44/commentary/1987

[34] Draft Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949: Commentary, p. 47-48. https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/llmlp/RC-Draft-additional-protocols/RC-Draft-additional-protocols.pdf

[35] https://www.icrc.org/en/our-history

[36] However, some experts have pointed out that the first Geneva Convention is one of the first international conventions developed under the impulse of the civil society. See Cedric Cotter, Ce que l’engagement humanitaire du général Dufour nous apprend en 2025, Le Temps, 12 July 2025, https://www.letemps.ch/opinions/ce-que-l-engagement-humanitaire-du-general-dufour-nous-apprend-en-2025?srsltid=AfmBOoqKEwHem5FZ28nJmUUO-_4kunOSAFqrVmc6H9cZqpchV46lW1om

[37] Giovanni Mantilla, “From treaty to custom: Shifting paths in the recent development of international humanitarian law”, Leiden Journal of International Law, 2024, p. 4.

[38] Boyd Van Dijk, “The Geneva Conventions, insurgency and decolonization”, The Oxford Handbook of Late Colonial Insurgencies and Counter-Insurgencies, 2023, pp. 197-213

[39] Yolande Diallo, “African Traditions and Humanitarian Law”, International Review of the Red Cross, 1976, https://international-review.icrc.org/sites/default/files/S0020860400010706a.pdf

[40] Emmanuel Bello, “African Customary Humanitarian Law”, Oyez Publishing Limited and International Committee of the Red Cross, Geneva, 1980

[41] Mutoy Mubiala, “African States and the promotion of humanitarian principles”, International Review of the Red Cross, 269, 1989, https://international-review.icrc.org/articles/african-states-and-promotion-humanitarian-principles

[42] See also Jacques Moreillon, Moments with Madiba, 2005, https://www.nelsonmandela.org/uploads/files/Moments-with-Madiba-Jacques-Moreillon.pdf

[43] Tamalin Bolus, Sarah Mabeza, “Changing the narrative: A Tool on African Traditions and the Preservation of Humanity during War”, International Review of the Red Cross, 104 (920-921), 2022, https://international-review.icrc.org/sites/default/files/reviews-pdf/2022-11/changing-the-narrative-african-traditions-preservation-of-humanity-during-war-920.pdf

[44] Interview with Yolande Diallo, 1 November 2023

[45] Paola Forgione, “The Geneva Conventions at 75: A common heritage of humanity | International Review of the Red Cross”, International Review of the Red Cross, 2025, https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-review-of-the-red-cross/article/geneva-conventions-at-75-a-common-heritage-of-humanity/9C610B7C0C22B2559E82586C81768CA0

[46] “From paper files to digital access: the digital transformation of the ICRC Archives – Cross-Files | ICRC Archives, audiovisual and library”, Cross-files blog, 21 January 2026, https://blogs.icrc.org/cross-files/safeguarding-archives/

[47] “Drafting history of the 1949 Geneva Conventions”, Cross-files blog, 12 August 2017, https://blogs.icrc.org/cross-files/drafting-history-1949-geneva-conventions/

[48] Tool on African Traditions and the Preservation of Humanity in Warfare | International Committee of the Red Cross, https://www.icrc.org/en/document/african-customs-tool-traditional-customs-and-ihl

[49] For the importance of Archives in the context of de-colonization, see Vincent Hiribarren, Hiding the Colonial Past? A Comparison of European Archival Policies, in Displaced Archives, ed. by James Lowry, 2017, pp. 74–85.