In 2016, thousands of young migrants were stranded in Calais, France, in the “Jungle” refugee camp. This paper aims to provide an overview of the British Red Cross's response and of how the organization engaged in numerous activities to secure their safety, culminating in a transfer of children to the United Kingdom.

This article considers the key data protection challenges facing humanitarian organizations providing assistance to refugees, internally displaced persons and migrants. These challenges are particularly significant for several reasons: because data protection has come relatively late to the humanitarian sector; because humanitarian organizations are under pressure to innovate rapidly; because the global communications architecture on which many of these innovations depend is inherently vulnerable to State surveillance; and because States are deploying increasingly sophisticated and coercive means to prevent irregular forms of migration and/or subjecting humanitarian organizations to surveillance and disruption. The first part of the article outlines the fundamental rights challenges presented by contemporary data-driven migration control paradigms. The second outlines concerns about “data-driven humanitarianism” and “mass surveillance” to show how humanitarian organizations risk inadvertently exacerbating these problems. The third assesses specific data protection challenges that humanitarian organizations face and the policies and practices they have developed in response. The article concludes with some brief observations on the technical and political dynamics shaping their efforts to comply with their legal and ethical obligations, and calls for the sector to work together to extend data protection norms and outlaw cyber-attacks by State actors.

This paper examines the legality and limits of security detention in armed conflict situations. It particularly investigates the issues of whether the protection of national security is a legitimate ground to restrict the right to liberty of persons in situations of international or non-international armed conflict, and if so, what are the limits to a State's prerogative to restrict the right to liberty of individuals suspected of threatening its national security. On the basis of a thorough analysis of the relevant extant rules of international law regulating warfare, the paper concludes that security detention is permissible in armed conflict situations regardless of whether the nature of the conflict is international or non-international. However, the prerogative of a State to impose security detention is circumscribed by a plethora of fundamental substantive and procedural safeguards against arbitrariness that are provided in the different rules of international humanitarian law and international human rights law. These safeguards affirm that the search for absolute security is neither desirable nor attainable and that the mere invocation of security concerns does not grant an absolute power to restrict or suspend the liberty of individuals in armed conflict situations. Whenever it is imposed, security detention should be preventive in nature, and must aim at safeguarding the basic national security interests of a State from serious, future, direct and imminent threats related to the armed conflict situation. Detainees should also be able to challenge its legality before a competent organ at the initial or later stage of the detention through a system of periodic review.

On 1 May 1964, Georg Hoffmann, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Delegate General in Africa, inspected Robben Island Prison, where some twenty days earlier Nelson Mandela was visited for the first time. Having access to political prisoners in apartheid South Africa, the ICRC sought to ensure that detainees lived in decent conditions and were treated humanely.

In this contribution the author examines overcrowding, one of the chronic problems that affect the prison system in Peru. First, the topic of the growth of the prison population during a determined period of years is addressed. Then, the author discusses three options for avoiding or controlling overcrowding in prisons: sending fewer people to prison, increasing the release of prisoners, and expanding existing prisons or building new ones. Finally, the article presents alternative measures of limiting freedom other than sending people to prison, and proposes a long-term solution which includes the participation of different sectors of the Peruvian government.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has worked on behalf of detained irregular migrants for many years as part of its activities for detainee populations in general, but has only recently started implementing specific programmes for detained migrants in countries of transit and destination. The ICRC visits detained migrants in both criminal and dedicated immigration detention facilities. During these visits, as with all detainees, the ICRC assesses whether detained migrants are treated humanely, held in conditions that preserve their dignity and afforded due process of law. The ICRC also evaluates whether they are able to maintain contact with the outside world, such as with their families and consular authorities, if they wish to do so. As part of its dialogue with the authorities, the ICRC also raises protection issues related to return to ensure that the authorities fulfil their obligations under relevant international law – in particular with respect to the principle of non-refoulement.

There is a saying: “Justice delayed is justice denied.” The perception of a continuing failure of the Philippine criminal justice system to deliver fast and efficient justice has inevitably led to the erosion of public trust in the government. As a consequence, citizens are laden with anxiety because of unabated criminality and violence in their communities. The type of justice that leads to peace and prosperity continues to be elusive in the Philippines as the worsening scenario of jail congestion continues to manifest its malevolent implications for the human rights of prisoners. It appears that the culprit is an overwhelmed machinery of criminal justice that has not been able to keep pace with growing rates of population, urbanization and criminality. There is also an apparent imbalance in the justice structure where there are too few judges, prosecutors and public defence attorneys to process the cases filed by the numerous law enforcers who file criminal cases. This leads to bottlenecks in criminal justice procedures and has resulted, in not a few instances, in human rights crises in jails. However, emerging developments give some hope to Filipinos.

This article clarifies the control a State should have over an armed group for the triggering act of an international armed conflict and for the internationalization of non-international armed conflicts in international humanitarian law. It explains the reasons for the distinction between these two types of attribution and details the specificities of each test, with an innovative approach. The author proposes new control tests for both triggering and internationalization, rejecting the effective and overall control tests regarding internationalization proposed by the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. For instance, regarding the internationalization of a non-international armed conflict, a general and strict control test is proposed. Finally, this article addresses specific issues like the difficult question of the control required for an occupation through an armed group.

This article charts the rapid rise in the use of imprisonment in recent decades before considering some of the most pressing issues of concern in the use of imprisonment today. First among these is prison overcrowding, which continues to blight the record of many countries in their treatment of prisoners. To illustrate the potentially dire consequences of overcrowding – a problem common to many other countries and regions – an account is given of a recent visit to a prison in El Salvador. The article then provides an overview of the relevant regional and international standards on the treatment of prisoners, referring also to the role of judicial bodies in ensuring implementation.

One key area in which international humanitarian law (IHL) needs strengthening is the protection of persons deprived of their liberty in relation to non-international armed conflicts (NIACs). While the Geneva Conventions contain more than 175 rules regulating deprivation of liberty in relation to international armed conflicts in virtually all its aspects, no comparable legal regime applies in NIAC. Since 2011, States and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) have worked jointly on ways to strengthen IHL protecting persons deprived of their liberty. Between 2011 and 2015, the ICRC facilitated consultations to identify options and recommendations to strengthen detainee protection in times of armed conflict; since 2015, the objective of the process has shifted towards work on one or more concrete and implementable outcomes. The present note recalls the legal need to strengthen detainee protection in times of NIAC and the main steps that have been taken over the past years to strengthen IHL.

Family members of incarcerated people are often faced with financial, social and emotional costs related to the imprisonment of their loved ones. These costs can be conceptualized as investments both in the sustenance of personal relationships and in a greater social good in the form of assisting with the reintegration of former prisoners. In this article, we draw upon data from a mixed-methods study to elucidate the costs of detention on families of prisoners. We demonstrate that financial, social and emotional costs associated with imprisonment of a family member are interrelated and often compound each other, indicating the importance of addressing them in a holistic framework.