International Committee of the Red Cross Red Cross (ICRC) is an impartial, neutral, and independent organization whose independently humanitarian mission is to protect the lives and dignity of victims of war and internal violence and to provide them with assistance." It also conducts and coordinates international relief and works to promote and strengthen international humanitarian law and universal humanitarian principles. The core tasks of the Committee, which are derived from the Geneva Conventions and its own statutes are: The ICRC drew up seven fundamental principles in 1965 that were adopted by the entire Red Cross Movement. They are humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence, volunteerism, unity, and universality.
Code of Conduct for the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and NGOs in Disaster Relief subscribe to the core principles. The code of conduct is a voluntary code which is self-enforced by each of the signatory organizations. The code includes two annexes, Annex I, Recommendations to governments of disaster affected countries, and Annex II, Recommendations to donor governments. The code of conduct is widely used to guide conduct within humanitarian agencies. When the code was drawn up a new term was coined: Non governmental humanitarian agencies (NGHAs), to include the NGOs and the components of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement which are not NGOs. The Disaster Emergency Committee (DEC) which is based