ABSTRACT
The institutional structures of general public international law and their comparison with the typical structures of municipal legal systems have long raised controversial questions in legal theory. The international Red Cross movement is of fundamental importance to the practical operation and development of international humanitarian law, having been the fruit of Henry Dunant's first proposal, for a medical relief agency in armed conflict, made in his pamphlet, Souvenir de Solferino, following his volunteer relief effort after the Battle of Solferino in 1859. The Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (formerly known as the League of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies) was established in 1919 to assist national societies in developing their community services, to co-ordinate and direct international disaster relief, and to assist refuges outside zones of armed conflict, including developing national disaster preparedness planning, and encouraging the establishment of new national societies where none have formally existed.
