Amongst the articles common to the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 can be found the following provisions, the whole of the first part of which is identical in all four treaties:

Geneva Convention for the amelioration of the condition of the wounded and sick in armed forces in the field (art. 47)

and

Geneva Convention for the amelioration of wounded, sick and shipwrecked members of armed forces at sea (art. 48)

“The High Contracting Parties undertake, in time of peace as in time of war, to disseminate the text of the present Convention as widely as possible in their respective countries, and, in particular, to include the study thereof in their programmes of military and, if possible, civjl instruction, so that the principles thereof may become known to the entire population, in particular to the armed fighting forces, the medical personnel and the chaplains.”

The report which has been entrusted to us as French co-rapporteur attempts to complete that which we submitted to the International Congress of the Neutrality of Medicine in Time of War, held in Paris on April 6 to 8, 1959.

Several weeks later, the Revue Internationale des Services de Santé published directives of action for the dissemination of the Geneva Conventions by Lieutenant-Colonel R. Belvaux of the Belgian Army, as a result of an international enquiry undertaken by the International Committee of Military Medicine and Pharmacy and to which 27 countries had replied.

Although the Malaysian Government does not accept the Geneva Conventions as being applicable to the armed conflict in which Indonesia is opposing it, the International Committee of the Red Cross has been authorized to carry out its humanitarian activity on behalf of the Indonesian victims of that conflict. Its general delegate for Asia, Mr. Andre Durand, visited in December 1964 and January 1965, a number of Indonesians who had fallen into the hands of the Malaysian authorities.

Mr. Carl J. Burckhardt, member of the ICRC, has recently asked to be relieved of his duties. This resignation was announced by Mr. S. A. Gonard, the President, at a plenary session of the International Committee of the Red Cross, on January 6, 1965. A ceremony took place on that occasion at which were present many members of the ICRC, directors and heads of Services, as well as some who had worked especially closely with Mr. Burckhardt.

The Geneva State Council has just appointed Mr. Jean Pictet to be in charge of courses in humanitarian law at the Faculty of Law. The International Committee of the Red Cross is doubly pleased by this appointment since, if Mr. Pictet is Director for General Affairs of the ICRC, he is also at the present time one of the jurists who have most knowledge of that part of the law of nations which, notably under the influence of the Red Cross movement, aims at protecting the victims of both international and civil war.

After nineteen years, a family in touch again. — Mrs. D., with her four daughters and one son, lived in a small Ukrainian village until 1943, when the German occupation forces sent the family to Germany, from which country they originated.