International Committee of the Red Cross International Committee of the Red Cross The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is a humanitarian institution based in Geneva, Switzerland, and a three-time Nobel Prize Laureate. State parties (signatories) to the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols of 1977 (Protocol I, Protocol II) and 2005 have given the ICRC a mandate to protect victims of international and internal armed conflicts. Such victims include war wounded, prisoners, refugees, civilians, and other non-combatants. The ICRC is part of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement along with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent
International Committee of the Red Cross bringing the total staff under the authority of the ICRC to roughly 15,000. Delegations also often work closely with the National Red Cross Societies of the countries where they are based, and thus can call on the volunteers of the National Red Cross to assist in some of the ICRC's operations. The organizational structure of the ICRC is not well understood by outsiders. This is partly because of organizational secrecy, but also because the structure itself has been prone to frequent change. The Assembly and Presidency are two long-standing institutions, but the Assembly Council and Directorate were created only in