By Yasaman Taherian
In 2012, Peter Maurer was appointed as the President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Years ago in 1987, he was working in the Federal Department of Foreign affairs and he was in charge of various responsibilities Berne and Pretoria. In 2000, at the headquarters of Switzerland’s foreign Ministry in Berne, he became the ambassador and head of division in charge of human security. In 2004, He became the Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Switzerland to the United Nations in New York. Before he was elected as the President of the ICRC, he was the State Secretary for Foreign Affairs of Switzerland. Since he took office one of the historic changes he’s achieved is the increased budget that went from 1.1bn CHF in 2011 to over 1.6bn CHF in 2015.
  As you know there are a lot of people in this world who are living in warzones. How organizations like Red Cross and Iranian Red Crescent Society can put pressure on governments and lawmakers in order to stop those inhumane courses of actions?
Well, as a humanitarian organization our first task is to assist and protect the people. Of course we also have to interact with governments but our first task is assisting and protecting people. It’s like coming to a car accident site that we have seen. You have first to save lives. Afterwards you have to see why did the accident happen and then you have to explain how to drive on the road. It’s a little bit the same in conflict. First you have to save people and you have then help them not to be victims of violence again. But then also you have to look for the origin and this is engaging with countries. And the first thing we are doing as the ICRC is certainly discuss on the respect of international humanitarian law because that’s what our mandate is. So therefore the respect of the rules of law is the most important thing to put pressure on governments to behave. But not all the governments are also non-state armed groups today as we know there are as much governments as non-state armed groups or more non-state armed groups and government it is important to engage them on international law.
  Humanitarian diplomacy has been a priority on the Red Cross agenda. Has the international community been complying with it?
 Well look, if you want to put some pressure on governments and armed actors, you have to engage them. You can’t just come and say behave. Who am I, in fact who are we as the Red Cross and the Red Crescent Movement to tell governments what to do. We have to engage them into a dialogue. We have to convince them and diplomacy is about convincing armed actors and governments to behave. You can do a lot of things. You can engage with governments, you can develop the law, you can train the armed forces, you can negotiate in order to visit detainees. You also have to negotiate access, as well as security arrangements. I summarize all of these activities under the term “Humanitarian diplomacy”. Humanitarian diplomacy is influencing actors to behave in a way consistent with the law and actively assisting people in order to let the ICRC and national societies also do their job. It will grant them access in security.
  There have been negotiations between Red Cross and Iranian Red Crescent Society over common grounds in potential collaboration. Have any of these agreements been implemented?
We are very satisfied with the fact that we have had good agreements in the past including partnership framework agreements with the Iranian Red Crescent in which we just renewed yesterday. We wouldn’t have renewed it if we wouldn’t be happy and if we wouldn’t see many reasons to continue our collaborations. Our work has been important in areas of health, physical rehabilitation, family reunification, identifying missing people, on a lot of areas that I could go on mentioning here but we are very happy about this partnership. As I mentioned in my public speech we are very grateful to the Iranian Red Crescent Society to be a strong partner of ICRC.
  In your meeting with Dr. Peyvandi you have pointed out that 70% of the Red Cross activities are in Islamic countries and emphasized on the «role of dialogue» in Islam and International humanitarian laws. Why is it important to have as you said «the common understanding»?
Well I think it is important that when you want to influence people or to have an impact you have speak the language which people speak. One of the languages that people speak is the language of Islam. Because we are active in these context it is important that we do not express the rules and principles of International humanitarian law only in the language of the Geneva conventions which is the universal language found in 1949 and 1977, but we also express it in a language consistent with thinking and values of Islamic societies; therefore the work that we have done in identifying communalities and there are many communalities between Islamic law and International humanitarian law is so important.
  And I know you just visited Iraq and you’re leaving Tehran for Damascus tomorrow. Do you have any plans for new strategies regarding what is happening and also how do you evaluate IRCS’s role in this region?
well, I believe as humanitarians we don’t need so much of a new strategy. We need more compliance and more cooperation by all actors with some of the key humanitarian values. Afterwards, as Mr. Peyvandi mentioned it this morning that we, as Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement need to be open to new technologies. I have seen a lot of new technology this morning and I think in that sense ICRC and IRCS are also partners in innovation in using new tools, new technics, new possibilities, connectivity, virtual realities as well as offering new possibilities to do better humanitarian assistance. Iranian Red Crescent has been a good partner in developing these innovative strategies of delivering humanitarian assistance.
  “Winning hearts and minds” is one of the key goals of any humanitarian organization. What is the best and shortest way to achieve it?
I think we don’t have any difficulties winning hearts and minds when I look at the capacity of mobilization of the Red cross and Red Crescent Movement. It is a remarkable and interesting that after more than 150 years of existence, this movement still attracts many volunteers. So It is such a lively vision in societies. I think winning the hearts and minds today is much more of a challenge for governments and I think one of the issues is that how we can actually convince governments and armed actors in conflicts to comply with key principles of humanity that international movement represent.