As cyber operations are increasingly taking place during armed conflicts, and this trend is likely to continue, certain specific protections afforded under IHL and identified in the physical world by the distinctive emblems of the Red Cross, Red Crescent, and Red Crystal must also be visible in an environment the drafters of the very first Geneva Convention in 1864 could never have imagined.

In this post, Samit D’Cunha, Legal Adviser at the ICRC, and Mauro Vignati, Technical Adviser at the ICRC, examine the rationale behind the Digital Emblem Project and the significant progress made in recent months. Drawing on ongoing standardization efforts and a growing list of supporters of the project, this post explores how a simple, globally recognizable marker is being developed to help distinguish specifically protected medical and humanitarian assets online.