A Movement with Several Components
The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement links National Societies, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. The Geneva initiative of Henry Dunant and others and the international conference in October 1863 provided a starting point. Its ten resolutions called for countries to organize their own committees, prepare medical relief supplies, and train volunteers, with Geneva temporarily acting as an intermediary for international correspondence. Local responsibility and mutual assistance became distinctive organizational features.
After the conference, Moynier promoted a committee letter to delegates on November 15, 1863 encouraging national organizations; Württemberg, Oldenburg, Belgium, and Prussia subsequently organized them. The 1864 Convention added treaty protection for battlefield medical relief. The point is how national bodies, cross-border connections, and government commitments developed in succession, rather than treating all later institutions as founded on the same day in 1863.
The League Adds Channels for Peacetime Cooperation
On May 5, 1919, the American, British, French, Italian, and Japanese National Societies founded the League of Red Cross Societies in Paris. Henry Davison, chairman of the American Red Cross War Council, promoted the initiative to redirect existing volunteer capacity toward disease prevention, public health, and disaster relief. The League was a new coordinating body among National Societies, existing alongside the International Committee in Geneva.
Its practical activities included international public-health nursing courses at Bedford College in London during the 1920s, bringing nurses from different countries together to study. The League also published a Bulletin to circulate National Societies' experience. This scholarly organizational history shows cooperation involving professional knowledge and training as well as the movement of relief supplies.
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How the Statutes Divide Responsibilities
The international conference at The Hague adopted common statutes in 1928, providing a framework for coordination among institutions. The statutes adopted in 1986 and amended in 1995 and 2006 identify National Societies as the Movement's basic units. They work under their own statutes and national laws, assisting public authorities in humanitarian matters while maintaining the autonomy needed to observe shared principles. Personnel, materials, or funds for another country may be provided through the receiving National Society, the International Committee, or the International Federation.
The International Committee's responsibilities include protection of victims of armed conflict, humanitarian law, and the Central Tracing Agency. The International Federation maintains permanent links among National Societies, supports their development, and coordinates international disaster relief. Article Seven requires regular contact between the two and agreements to coordinate action when necessary. Articles Eight and Nine provide for the Movement's components and states party to the Geneva Conventions to participate jointly in the International Conference, each delegation having one vote.
Funds and Supplies Are Raised Separately
The 1863 resolutions assigned necessary provision for volunteers to national committees, an early arrangement for decentralized resource gathering and international mutual aid. The League initially depended largely on American Red Cross funding, and financial shortages forced cost reductions. Establishing a cooperative institution did not mean it already possessed common finances sufficient for every task.
Later accounts provide a concrete scale. The ICRC Annual Report 2013 separately lists headquarters and field fundraising: twenty-nine National Societies contributed 35.2 million Swiss francs to its field operations that year, alongside donations from governments, the European Commission, and other public and private sources. These were International Committee funds, not a unified budget for the entire Movement. The statutes also allow National Societies to support one another through personnel, services, and supplies.
Shared Principles and Cooperation in the Field
Typhoon relief in the Philippines in 2013 illustrates the arrangement in practice. The International Committee's annual report describes the Philippine Red Cross, International Federation, other National Societies, and the ICRC jointly deploying additional personnel to provide food, shelter, medicines, and water to affected communities in Mindanao and later Samar. Local personnel networks thus combined with resources from abroad.
The statutory principles of humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence, voluntary service, unity, and universality establish shared requirements for cooperation. The Movement's organizational capacity comes from connections among local implementation, specialist responsibilities, and international support. National Societies retain their identities, and the two international institutions coordinate through rules and consultation, while the effectiveness of relief must still be tested through actual work.