http://worldcat.org/entity/work/id/37541277

Congress on International Solidarity and Humanitarian Actions, San Remo, 10-13 September 1980

The Congress examined the relationship between international solidarity and humanitarian action, with regard to the following topics: human rights; development; the Red Cross movement; natural disasters; protection of children; protection of refugees; political detainees and disarmament. The key work in this Congress was the principle common to all humanitarian action: solidarity. The importance of the indivisibility and interdependence of human rights was emphasized in particular. The evaluation of human rights was possible also because of international solidarity in humanitarian actions, but their enforcement must not be politically and inconsistently selective. Development in the Third World is also a right stemming from this solidarity whose ongoing effectiveness now requires dialogue towards creating a new economic order. From the outset, international solidarity has been the essence of the Red Cross movement and humanitarian law it created. It has permitted the Red Cross to enter fields of human suffering beyond its original specific focus on battlefield victims and to develop widespread activities of relief of sufferings from natural catastrophes and has also permitted the evolution of the system of protection of refugees. Yet limitations of solidarity are shown in the reluctance of states to expand their commitments beyond protection of refugees, leaving without positive treatment matters of a right to asylum and the elimination of causes producing refugees. International solidarity may be considered as a human right. It has fostered effective interventions regarding the abusive treatment, notably torture and disappearence of political detainees to the extent that it is indispensable for various substantive human rights and present in humanitarian concern for disarmament and the rights of the child.

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