INSTITUTIONAL IMPACT OF THE ADMINISTRATION OF COOPERATION BETWEEN THE COMPONENTS OF THE INTERNATIONAL RED CROSS AND RED CRESCENT MOVEMENT ON THE EFFECTIVENESS OF HUMANITARIAN ACTIVITIES IN UKRAINE

Abstract

The article examines the internal administrative arrangements underpinning cooperation among the components of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement as the key institutional and regulatory foundation of their interaction. It assesses the effectiveness of this interaction among National Societies, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) in Ukraine under the conditions of the Russian Federation’s full-scale armed invasion. The analysis identifies the sources that govern the specific forms and modalities of National Societies’ activities within the Movement. It elucidates the allocation of competences and the coordination mechanisms among the Movement’s components in accordance with the Seville Agreement 2.0. The article further outlines the legal bases for the status, operations, and interaction of the Movement’s components in Ukraine and delineates the regulatory framework for cooperation between the Ukrainian Red Cross Society (URCS) and each international component. The distinctive features of implementing the Seville Agreement 2.0 in the Ukrainian context are highlighted. The paper argues that the conjunction of the normative factor (the Seville Agreement 2.0) and the institutional factor (URCS resilience and capacity) has been decisive in ensuring effective humanitarian access, coordination, and complementarity. At the same time, it identifies a set of challenges in Ukraine’s practice: the spillover of reputational crises from one component to others, thereby undermining trust in the Movement as a whole; shortcomings in Ukrainian national legislation governing URCS activities; and the need to update the legal framework for the international components’ operations amid a high-intensity armed conflict. Overcoming these problems requires the development of unified communication and mutual-accountability mechanisms among the components, the improvement of Ukraine’s regulatory framework, and the adaptation of coordination procedures to contemporary challenges of humanitarian action.