Top 82 Quotes & Sayings by Peter Maurer - Page 2

Every day, we hear of civilians being killed and wounded in violation of the basic rules of international humanitarian law and with total impunity. Instability is spreading. Suffering is growing. No country can remain untouched.

The abuse of civilians and combatants has existed since the dawn of time.

Although the ICRC and the World Economic Forum have separate missions, they both are centred on collaboration across sectors and between various actors in order to improve the state of the world.

Very often, development agencies or even some of the humanitarian actors choose the... more comfortable type of work, where it is safe, while the more important work has to be done where it is profoundly unsafe.

The principal cause of suffering during humanitarian crises is insufficient respect of applicable rules of international humanitarian law.

It's one thing if a politician in a small country says a little bit of torturing is good to do. There is a qualitative difference... when it's a candidate to run a superpower.

We need to understand that the Geneva Conventions are not just some historical documents born of another time, created for another purpose.

The sad fact is that horrendous human conflict is nothing new.

You treat detainees humanely because you know the other side will also treat detainees humanely.

Cities are drivers of growth and wealth, and at the same time, cities are becoming increasingly violent.

You don't torture people. You don't indiscriminately attack civilians. You protect as good as you can the impact of your warfare on women and children.

As responsible politicians, you have to manage migration.

In our fibre-optic world of tweets and tablets, we are more conscious of the world around us. The technicolour violence and humanitarian abuses of today are just a flick of a switch away. In our homes, on the train, in our coffee shops, we see it, we feel it, we know about it. All of us. All of the time. Human suffering is visible, constantly.

Urbanisation, poverty, youth unemployment are leading to violence-prone cities.

We demonize our enemies at our own peril.

While conflicts have expanded and deepened and transformed, actors have transformed, and humanitarian assistance is transforming. Protection work is transforming and taking on another character.

Not enough countries, not enough armies, not enough armed groups are abiding by the fundamental human values enshrined in the Geneva Conventions.

Attacks on health facilities, health workers, ambulances, is now a reality that we observe on the ground - not on a monthly but on a daily or weekly scale in most of the conflicts in which we are engaged.

We see a transformation of warfare from the big armies and battlefields in open spaces to a fragmentation of armed groups and smaller armies, which move into city centres, which increasingly become the theatre of warfare.

If you back out of a convention... you can't dodge your obligation. Torture is still not acceptable.

You can't expect humanitarian and development agencies to rebuild Syria. There is not enough money. There is not enough capacity. There are not enough skills.

Can you really send back people to where they are fleeing from?