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Apropos the new Constitution of the League of Red Cross Societies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 January 2010

Jacques Meurant
Jacques Meurant*
Affiliation:
Special Adviser to the Secretary General, in charge of Statutory Matters
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Extract

The idea of making an overall revision of the Constitution and Bye-Laws of the League occurred in the context of a major evolution in the activities of the institution, corresponding to the changing needs of its members and of peoples, as a result of the rapid transformations of the modern world.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Review of the Red Cross (1961 - 1997) , Volume 18 , Issue 205 , August 1978 , pp. 192 - 204
Copyright
Copyright © International Committee of the Red Cross 1978

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References

1 Resolution 15/73 of the XXXIInd session of the Board of Governors. The mandate of the group was re-affirmed and renewed by Resolution 9/75 of the XXXIIIrd session of the Board of Governors and again by decision 3/76 of the extraordinary session of the Board of Governors.

2 The Constitution Revision Commission comprised Mr. A. Alcantara (Senegal), President; Mr. F. Wendl (Austria), Secretary; Mr. E. Boeri (Monaco), Assistant Secretary—these three members constituting the Bureau of the Commission—and representatives of the National Societies of Australia, Bulgaria, Canada, France, India, Kuwait, Nigeria, Philippines, Switzerland, United Kingdom and Yugoslavia. The President of the League appointed Prof. H. Haug (Switzerland) as Liaison Officer between the Commission and the Committee of the Chairman and Vice-Chairmen. He also appointed Prof. J. Patrnogic, former Secretary General of the Yugoslav Red Cross, as legal consultant to the Commission.

3 See An Agenda for Red Cross, 1975 Google Scholar (hereinafter referred to as the Tansley Report), are-appraisal of the role of the Red Cross assigned to Mr. Tansley by the Board of Governors (Resolution No. 2) in 1971.

4 National Societies were five times invited to submit their comments and suggestions on the revision of the Constitution (May 1974) and on successive drafts of the Constitution and of the Rules of Procedure worked out by the Commission (October 1974, April 1975, March 1976, October 1976 and August 1977).

5 Max Huber, at the Thirteenth International Red Cross Conference (The Hague, October 1928). Compte rendu de la Conférence, pp. 102–103.Google Scholar

6 Statutes of the International Red Cross, Art. 2 (6).

7 The Constitution Revision Commission did not consider suggestions made by some Societies for the review or revision of the Principles, which only the International Red Cross Conference is empowered to do. Nor did the Commission analyze the legal validity of the Fundamental Red Cross Principles adopted by the Board of Governors at its XIXth session at Oxford in 1946 and amended at its XXth session in Stockholm in 1948. These principles were re-affirmed by the 18th International Red Cross Conference.

8 Tansley Report, p. 102.

9 It was pointed out also that the name of the League had been officially introduced into the June 1977 Protocols additional to the Geneva Conventions.

10 Rules of Procedure, Rule 1.3.

11 Statutes of the International Red Cross, Art. 7(2) and the 1969 Constitution of the League, Art. 3.

12 ICRC-League Agreement, 1951 (renewed in 1969), Section I, Art. 2.

13 Resolution VII of the Twenty-third International Red Cross Conference (Bucharest, October 1977),

“2. invites National Societies to intensify their efforts, in collaboration with their governments, for the dissemination of knowledge of international humanitarian law and of its principles as widely as possible among the population and especially among youth”. It also requests

“3. the ICRC and the League to lay down guidelines for their cooperation in this sphere of dissemination in order to give more effective help to National Societies in drawing up programmes of activities concerning the dissemination of knowledge of international humanitarian law and the training of national officers in this field”.

14 “The International Committee of the Red Cross and the League of Red Cross Societies shall maintain contact with one another in order to co-ordinate their activities as far as possible and avoid overlapping.”

15 League Constitution, Art. 32.3.

16 Tansley Report, p. 96.

17 ICRC-League Agreement, art. 7/VIII.

18 Rules of Procedure, Rule 21.2.

19 Tansley Report, p. 103.

20 Tansley Report, p. 101.