The fate of Afghan women during the Taliban regime and following the 11 September 2001 attacks has been the focus of considerable attention in both Western media and academia. There was a significant amount of debate in human rights and governmental circles about their suffering. Documentaries, at times produced at great personal risk to their authors, and even cinema productions such as Kandahar, the film by the Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf, have dealt with their plight.

Over and above their differences, humanitarian workers and clergy have one point in common: they both come into contact with death and suffering. In such circumstances, however, they each have their own approach. The religious approach is to provide solace for the dying and, later, for the bereaved, through a series of rituals. Humanitarian workers, for their part, are more concerned with tasks such as recovering bodies, informing families of the death of their loved ones and helping them to cope with the consequences. In cases where bodies cannot be recovered (missing persons), both humanitarian action and funeral rites must be adapted in such a way as to relieve the distress of families and enable them to start the grieving process.

The fall of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan has opened the way for considerable debate on the country's future, and the part to be played by women in that future is now being widely analysed and discussed. Much has being written about the fate of women under the Taliban. This short article aims to review the activities of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Afghanistan during the Taliban rule, with particular focus on its impact on women to see what lessons could be learned in terms of how to provide the widest and most effective humanitarian assistance despite massive political and logistical constraints. Before continuing, it should be pointed out that prior to Taliban rule the situation of women in Kabul and other large towns (where their access to education and work and their freedom of movement were greater) differed considerably from that of women in rural areas (where the approach towards them was generally more conservative). So when the Taliban took power, their impact varied throughout the country.

The article outlines the inception and subsequent development of the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, describes its mandate and working methods, reviews its activities and makes several recommendations to restore its effectiveness.

Established in 1980 with a humanitarian mandate, the Group saw its duties steadily increase and, when the Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances was adopted, it was entrusted with the task of monitoring States' compliance with their obligations deriving from it. Its humanitarian task includes an elucidatory procedure to trace the whereabouts of missing persons. In its task of monitoring compliance with the Declaration, the Group verifies that the obligations deriving from it are duly performed by States and addresses general observations and recommendations to them.

During its existence the Group has made substantial contributions. For several reasons, however, it has lost much of its effectiveness. Yet enforced disappearances are not a thing of the past, nor are they diminishing. The Group and its mandate are as necessary as ever.

Like other international organizations, the European Union has progressively included an «international humanitarian law» dimension in the policies it intends to pursue in its international relations. Initially focused on human rights, the regional European organization has taken the convergence between the various legal instruments for the protection of the individual into account. Today it no longer regards international humanitarian law as an alternative, hut as a useful complement to be applied within its foreign and common security policy. At first concentrated in its basic policy statement that law now features in all legal instruments at the organization's disposal to act in accordance with its international vocation. This new reference thus highlights the European Union's role not only in disseminating the Geneva Conventions and Protocols and promoting respect for them, but also in ensuring that the rules of international humanitarian law progress and become adapted to new forms of conflict.

“IHL takes a particular male perspective on armed conflict, as a norm against which to measure equality. In a world where women are not equals of men, and armed conflict impacts upon men and women in a fundamentally different way, a general category of rules that is not inclusive of the reality for women cannot respond to their situation.”

La mise en œuvre de la première disposition commune aux Conventions de Genève a récemment connu un développement dans le contexte des violations du droit international humanitaire liées au conflit israélo-palestinien. Ce conflit, qui a donné lieu à de nombreuses résolutions et décisions sur le plan politique, en particulier au sein de l'ONU, a également fait l'objet d'une action multilatérale des États parties en tant que tels, sur la base de l'article premier commun. Entre 1997 et 2001, s'est déroulé dans une certaine discrétion un processus qui, sur le plan juridique, a montré voire ouvert une voie, peut-être nouvelle, sur la manière dont les États parties, compte tenu de leur obligation première en matière de mise en œuvre des Conventions de Genève, comprennent leur rêle, y compris face à l'ONU, aux parties à un conflit et aux acteurs humanitaires (en particulier le CICR).