During the past few years, activities for the dissemination of international law applicable in armed conflicts have increased substantially. Yet there is no doubt that these efforts will have to be further intensified in order to reflect the increasing importance of humanitarian law in modern armed conflicts.

Medical practice in disaster relief has a very specific aspect as compared with medicine in general, but I must point out that the difference lies in its organization rather than in its therapeutic nature. A doctor who has before him a sick or wounded person, or any other patient, will unstintingly provide care according to the knowledge and training he received at medical school. He will do so in accordance with the code of ethics of his calling, inculcated by his throughout the world draw inspiration from the Hippocratic Oath, the Prayer of Maimonides or the Geneva Declaration. All of this has been accepted and need not enter the type of training which we are about to define. The same applies to nurses and to the doctor's specialized auxiliaries, who are adequately trained for their occupation, in similar yet differentiated fashion.

On 21 February 1973, a Libyan airliner was brought down in the Sinai desert.

The ICRC promptly offered the authorities concerned its services for the transmission of information regarding the victims, and asked to be allowed to visit the survivors.

On a visit to Switzerland, H.I.H. Princess Yuriko Mikasa, Honorary Vice-President of the Japanese Red Cross Society, called at the headquarters of the International Committee of the Red Cross on 14 March 1973.

On 21 March 1973, the ICRC issued the following press release: According to press reports on 14 March, the Delegation of the Republic of Vietnam in Paris, replying to a communication from the “Communauté vietnamienne” mentioning ill-treatment in Con Son Prison, said that “the South Vietnam detention camps, including Con Son, has been visited by international humanitarian organizations, including the International Red Cross”.

During the year 1972, the ICRC continued in Israel, the occupied territories and the Arab countries to give assistance to persons protected under the terms of the 1949 Geneva Conventions. This assistance consisted essentially in visiting military and civilian prisoners, transmitting family messages, organizing the reuniting of dispersed families and providing relief supplies to the needy population.

This manual, as our readers know, reproduces and illustrates for the armed forces the essential provisions of the 1949 Geneva Conventions. The pilot edition of 10,000 copies in 1969 was sent by the ICRC to Governments and National Red Cross Societies. The booklet was revised according to their comments and published in pocket-size format. In 1971, and again in 1972, the English, French, Spanish and Arabic versions issued totalled 150,000 copies; 6,000 copies of a Portuguese version were also published.