The Conference on the Law of Treaties held at Vienna in 1968 and 1969, like the other important United Nations conferences on the codification of international law (Geneva Conferences on the Law of the Sea of 1958 and 1960, Vienna Conference on Diplomatic Intercourse and Immunities of 1961 and Vienna Conference on Consular Relations of 1963), formulated and adopted a Convention on the basis of a draft which was the collective work of the International Law Commission (ILC) of the United Nations, carried out under the guidance of a Special Rapporteur.

We have thus been witnessing since 1958 the interesting process of the reduction into treaty law of a substantial part of the customary international law of peace; if this period is compared with the centuries that went before, the transformation of unwritten rules into written law which has thus taken place appears remarkably fast. This codification of public international law has of course served to clarify pre-existing rules but it has at the same time made it possible to bring these rules up to date so as to meet better the new requirements of the community of States—the society which is governed by that law and which has undergone significant changes in the last few decades.

The second session of the Conference of Government Experts on the Reaffirmation and Development of International Humanitarian Law Applicable in Armed Conflicts, convened by the ICRC, began in Geneva last May and terminated on 2 June. We give below a brief analysis of the results of the four commissions assigned, as mentioned in our previous issue, to the study of the content of the two draft additional Protocols to the 1949 Geneva Conventions. In a subsequent issue we shall refer to the final report on the work of the Conference, which the ICRC is now preparing and will shortly publish.

Prisoners of War

The ICRC is continuing its activities for the benefit of prisoners of war on both sides.

Pakistan: further visits were made at the end of May and beginning of June to prisoner-of-war camps at Lyallpur and Rawalpindi, and to the Lahore and Rawalpindi hospitals. The ICRC delegates delivered to the Indian prisoners of war parcels prepared for them by the Indian Red Cross.

The International Committee has decided to complete the Presidential Council by appointing Mr. Roger Gallopin and Mr. Pierre Micheli to membership.

In a letter dated 24 April 1972, which reached the Swiss Government on 10 May 1972, the Minister for Foreign Affairs of the United Arab Emirates informed the Swiss Federal Council of that State's accession to the four 1949 Geneva Conventions.

One of the duties assigned to the International Committee of the Red Cross by the 1949 Geneva Conventions is to provide medical care, whether in an emergency, in the context of a relief operation or in the course of routine visits to places of detention. In an emergency, the ICRC calls upon Swiss doctors who have a private practice or who work in a hospital, and upon National Red Cross Societies which supply doctors or complete teams.