International Committee of the Red Cross additional protocol to the Geneva Convention was adopted in 1925 which outlawed the use of suffocating or poisonous gases and biological agents as weapons. Four years later, the original Convention was revised and the second Geneva Convention "relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War" was established. The events of World War I and the respective activities of the ICRC significantly increased the reputation and authority of the Committee among the international community and led to an extension of its competencies. As early as in 1934, a draft proposal for an additional convention for the protection of the civil population
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