The GPP Celebrates New ICRC Report on Humanitarian Action and Peace and Recent Initiatives on IHL and Peace

The GPP Celebrates New ICRC Report on Humanitarian Action and Peace and Recent Initiatives on IHL and Peace
10Dec

The GPP Celebrates New ICRC Report on Humanitarian Action and Peace and Recent Initiatives on IHL and Peace

Last month, the GPP attended the launch of a major report by the ICRC—a key member of the GPP international advisory council—“Through Humanity To Peace: Reflections on Humanitarian Action and Peace From the ICRC’s Practice”. This report provides valuable insights and an important reminder of the critical relationship between humanitarian action in armed conflict and peacebuilding. It also aptly complements other recent ICRC initiatives on the related nexus between international humanitarian law and peacebuilding—an area which the GPP has sought to highlight in its own work and is committed to continue to promote.

How Principled Humanitarian Action in Armed Conflict Contributes to Sustainable Peace

Building on the ICRC’s operational experience in Colombia, Northern Ireland, and Yemen, as well as on a growing body of research, this report sheds light on the relationship between humanitarian action in armed conflict and peacebuilding. The report provides unique practical insights evidencing the importance of this relationship and, by drawing attention to the synergies, demystifies the perceived gap between the objectives and practices of humanitarian organizations and that of peacebuilding actors.

Presenting findings as to how the ICRC contributes to enabling peace, the report highlights in particular how its work helps repairing the social fabric within local communities, raising a humanitarian voice while encouraging dialogue, and promoting respect for human dignity by strengthening laws, norms and institutions—all of which help preserve pathways for peace and lay the groundwork for peacebuilding efforts.

The Mutually Reinforcing Relationship Between IHL and Peacebuilding

Separate from this report, other recent initiatives by the ICRC—including in the framework of its “Global Initiative to Galvanize Political Commitment to International Humanitarian Law” and its workstream on IHL and Peace—have also stressed the importance of the more specific nexus between international humanitarian law (IHL) and peacebuilding. In an era where the boundaries of war have become increasingly blurred—with protracted conflicts and hybrid warfare increasingly the norm rather than the exception—understanding this other relationship is indeed critical, even though it often remains overlooked.

Because IHL focuses on the regulation of conducts in times of war rather than in resolving conflicts, and in part because of its emphasis on neutrality, it can even appear at odds with the objectives and approaches of peacebuilding. Meanwhile, its nature as a complex set of international treaties and customary norms sometimes overshadows its fundamentally practical orientation and concrete relevance, as well as the wide range of practices and network of actors that contribute to its implementation. As often in the field of peacebuilding, institutional fragmentation as well as siloed professional lingo and practices also contributes to maintaining such conceptual and operational separations.

Yet, as the latest issue of the International Review of the Red Cross demonstrates, IHL plays a variety of key roles that support peacebuilding efforts—meanwhile there is mounting evidence suggesting that the failure to comply with IHL makes achieving sustained peace after the cessation of hostilities more difficult and uncertain—and a better articulation with peacebuilding could offer major benefits.

Moreover, the relationship between International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and peacebuilding is mutually reinforcing, and both fields stand to benefit from a deeper understanding of their interconnection. As peacebuilding efforts encounter increasing challenges and respect for core humanitarian norms and values is significantly eroded in many contemporary conflicts, highlighting this relationship offers an important opportunity for collaboration toward achieving a more peaceful world.

How IHL Contributes to Peacebuilding

As the GPP’s Executive Director Annyssa Bellal stressed in May 2025 on the occasion of a consultation in the framework of the ICRC’s Global Initiative, IHL contributes to peacebuilding both before, during, and after conflicts, in a variety of ways, including by:

  • Mitigating cycles of violence and retaliation: by restricting the conduct of parties in war, IHL helps prevent escalations of violence and cycles of retaliation, thereby reducing the levels of destruction and the suffering of affected populations.
  • Preserving pathways to reconciliation: by asserting the primacy of human dignity, mitigating the effects of war on populations, promoting restraint and accountability, IHL helps create conditions where reconciliation is possible and trust can be rebuilt between communities after hostilities end.
  • Practicing dialogue and building confidence: even in the midst of active conflicts, IHL and organizations that advocate for its respect contribute to establishing channels of discussion on humanitarian matters that help open up space for dialogue where it would otherwise be impossible and create precedents that can later be leveraged in peacebuilding processes.
  • Promoting shared values and principles: despite the divisions and tensions inherent in armed conflicts, IHL promotes a common baseline of standards rooted in the fundamental principe of human dignity, fostering shared values and principles that support peaceful coexistence.

Conversely, for warring parties—as well as for organizations promoting IHL—better understanding their contribution to peacebuilding also helps them rethink their role and see their responsibility and impact beyond the conflict paradigm. It helps dispel the myth of “victory” in war, as well as the focus on military operations, and instead encourages them to look ahead to the challenges that come with delivering peace and stability when the fighting ends.

Emphasizing the IHL-peacebuilding nexus also gives actors involved in promoting IHL access to the wealth of experience, methodologies, tools, and approaches, accumulated over time by the peacebuilding community, and encourages synergies.

Spotlight on the GPP’s Work on the Humanitarian Action, IHL, and Peace

In line with its mandate to bring closer together all Geneva-based actors whose work contributes to building and sustaining peace, in 2025 the GPP also took steps—together with its partners—to advance knowledge and awareness on the interactions between humanitarian action, IHL, and peacebuilding, including through the following activities:

The GPP thanks the partners involved in these activities and looks forward to continuing to promote a better understanding and mobilization of these nexuses in the years to come.

Edit: Note that this post corrects an earlier version and the corresponding announcement in our December newsletter regarding the content of the November 2025 ICRC report “Through Humanity to Peace”.

 

Geneva Peacebuilding Platform Foundation