In the 1860s, the establishment of the Red Cross would spark the beginnings of the Geneva Conventions, a series of international humanitarian laws written to protect the rights of civilians, military personnel, and prisoners of war. With the declaration of the First Geneva Convention in 1864 came the protection of the Red Cross, to be used as a universally identifiable symbol of neutral medical aid offered by the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Don’t use the word: “misuse” if the first 5 Roblox items you haven’t seen is that they portray real life first aid kit bandages and doctors with this logo similiar to the ones you see at your nearest hospital. If it were to be clothing featuring red cross that’s used for armed combat, then it would be a problem due to it contravening with the Geneva Conventions.
While it is true that these Roblox items may depict an accurate reflection of real world scenarios where the Red Cross emblem is used without permission, recreating those instances in Roblox would be considered misuse as well. As described in the Red Cross Significance Flyer linked in the original post, “misuse occurs when an unauthorized party uses the Red Cross emblem without permission.”
If you wish to read more about the International Committee of the Red Cross, and the Red Cross emblem itself, you can visit the ICRC’s website at https://www.icrc.org/en. Their website not only offers plenty of resources describing their work, but gives you a quick and easy donation page to help directly fund their efforts!
Never thought that red cross VIOLATES any rules. There’s TONS of games which utilize it for medkits or smth like that, but bruh, who, when and why someone desided to block use of them? It’s widespread symbol for a lot of healing items in games. Even just changing it to green will negativelly impact a lot of games. Just example of health potions: Red cross, red blood, red health bar. Everything is red. Never saw green or blue health potions.
It’s specifically a red cross on a white background. So your last two images are not in violation. However, I wish to point out that the Geneva Conventions does not apply to civilians in peace time.
The red cross symbol becomes very important during war and armed conflict because it means that’s a place where people can be safe, receive medical aid, food, shelter, etc… It’s neutral and violation of that is a war crime. My initial reaction was this was bogus bug report. But after doing some research, I see the importance of it and why it’s protected by international treaty.
Furthermore, you can be fined and go to jail for not using it correctly. So the United States does take this very seriously.
On an unrelated note, I discovered that the ICRC is encouraging people to conform to Geneva Conventions when playing combat games. This would include the international rules of engagement.
This is fair, since I don’t know the Red Cross to just sue everyone like Nintendo does. Even if it is a low priority, I still think it is good to at least bring up and have in the backlog since it is a potential trademark issue. It would also be a sign to others to not use the symbol as well.
The Red Cross routinely enforces this, especially against video games. It’s not a “trademark issue” it’s literally a legal provision of the Geneva Conventions that the Red Cross symbol is restricted.
thanks for the thoughtful report