The Review Conference of the 1980 United Nations Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons which May be Deemed to be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects will be held in Vienna from 25 September to 13 October 1995.

This Conference offers a unique opportunity for a thorough analysis of the problems caused by the use of certain weapons, with landmines heading the list. It should also specify measures to be taken to prevent the manufacture and use of new weapons from creating serious problems in future.

The International Committee is a Red Cross institution. It takes part in the deliberations of the International Conferences and other statutory bodies of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement of which it is the founder; but it may also be subject to rules laid down by those statutory bodies.

The importance of promoting knowledge of international humanitarian law has been recognized since its beginnings. Dissemination was made an obligation for States by the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols of 1977.

The law regulating the use of force at sea has long been due fora reevaluation in the light of developments in methods and means of warfare at sea and the fact that major changes have taken place in other branches of international law of direct relevance to this issue. This need was reflected in Resolution VII of the 25th International Conference of the Red Cross, which noted that “some areas of international humanitarian law relating to sea warfare are in need of reaffirmation and clarification on the basis of existing fundamental principles of international humanitarian law” and therefore appealed to “governments to co-ordinate their efforts in appropriate fora in order to review the necessity and the possibility of updating the relevant texts of international humanitarian law relating to sea warfare”.

When it was founded, the ICRC, recognizing the unpredictable and inescapable nature of war, hoped that it would be able to alleviate the most harmful effects of war by providing protection and assistance and raising awareness1 of international humanitarian law and the need to respect it. Thus all the activities undertaken by the institution are rooted in the reality of war — the degree of medical assistance and relief, for example, depends on the number of victims, while protection for prisoners is specifically given to “persons detained because of the situation”. Similarly, the ICRC's Central Tracing Agency forwards family messages when normal communication channels are severed, traces people who have gone missing because of the conflict, and reunites family members separated by the events. The only ICRC activities that are not exclusively a response to needs resulting from war are the dissemination of knowledge of humanitarian law and principles, and cooperation with the National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

The 26th International Conference of the Red Cross and the Red Crescent will take place in Geneva in December 1995. This Conference, which meets every few years, is unquestionably the most important forum for addressing humanitarian issues. It is also a source of cohesion between States and the various components of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, whose history since its inception has been closely linked with Geneva. The 26th International Conference should have been held in Budapest in 1991, but was unfortunately postponed owing to political problems. As a result, nine years have passed since the last Conference in 1986, which was also held in Geneva.

The San Remo Manual was prepared during the period 1988–1994 by a group of legal and naval experts participating in their personal capacity in a series of Round Tables convened by the International Institute of Humanitarian Law. The purpose of the Manual is to provide a contemporary restatement of international law applicable to armed conflicts at sea. The Manual includes a few provisions which might be considered progressive developments in the law but most of its provisions are considered to state the law which is currently applicable. The Manual is viewed by the participants of the Round Tables as being in many respects a modern equivalent to the Oxford Manual on the Laws of Naval War Governing the Relations Between Belligerents adopted by the Institute of International Law in 1913. A contemporary manual was considered necessary because of developments in the law since 1913 which for the most part have not been incorporated into recent treaty law, the Second Geneva Convention of 1949 being essentially limited to the protection of the wounded, sick and shipwrecked at sea. In particular, there has not been a development for the law of armed conflict at sea similar to that for the law of armed conflict on land with the conclusion of Protocol I of 1977 additional to the Geneva Conventions of 1949. Although some of the provisions of Additional Protocol I affect naval operations, in particular those supplementing the protection given to medical vessels and aircraft in the Second Geneva Convention of 1949, Part IV of the Protocol, which protects civilians against the effects of hostilities, is applicable only to naval operations which affect civilians and civilian objects on land.

The United Nations General Assembly welcomed, in its resolution 48/79 of 16 December 1993, the request made to the organization's Secretary-General by a State party to the 1980 Weapons Convention (France) to convene a conference to review, in accordance with Article 8(3), the provisions of that Convention. In paragraph 6 of the same resolution, the General Assembly encouraged the States party to ask the Secretary-General to set up a group of government experts to prepare such a conference. The States did so and the group of experts that was subsequently brought together held three meetings in 1994 and one in 1995. Pursuant to a decision by the group, the Review Conference is to be held in Vienna from 25 September to 13 October 1995.

Concern about the effects of certain conventional weapons, particularly landmines, is not new. Had that concern been lacking, the 1980 Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) would not have been formulated. Nor would some of the earlier studies on the issue by UN bodies have been written. What is new is a heightened interest in the problems caused by landmines, particularly in post-conflict settings. Several factors have contributed to the increased recognition that even though the CCW is in place, it has not addressed the ever-worsening situation on the ground. (The United States army estimates that 400 million landmines have been sown since the beginning of the Second World War, including at least 65 million in the last 15 years.)

The international community recently realized that certain types of emergency assistance could have negative effects on the still to come development phases. In that context, a theme has been brought under the limelight: the “emergency-development continuum”, underlying the need to design the activities in time of crisis taking into account the following stages.

On 9 December 1994 the United Nations General Assembly adopted by consensus the Convention on the Safety of United Nations and Associated Personnel. In so doing it completed a process of codification and progressive development of international law at an unusually fast pace, considering that the Ad Hoc Committee entrusted by the 48th General Assembly (1993) with drafting the Convention took less than nine months to complete its task.

Water, life-giving and bounteous, the symbol of fertility and purity, is also a source of fear, risk and danger, of covetousness and conflict. Serving many purposes, all equally necessary, it constitutes a vital resource of which man has always tried to regulate the use and management. But unlike peacetime legislation, reflected in the customs and practices of the most ancient societies as well as in the domestic and international legal instruments of modern times, the law of armed conflicts has devoted only few of its provisions expressly — and belatedly — to water. This is not so much a criticism as an observation and may be explained by the fact that water is indispensable in all circumstances. Apart from the consequences of natural disasters, when water may be either threatening or threatened, some human activities can harm the environment and impair the population's means of survival, of which water is the most essential. The effects of pollution or armed conflict are a case in point. The experience of modern warfare has shown, alas, that the civilian population and civilian objects are exposed to military operations and that in some cases thirst can prove to be more deadly than weapons. The only remedy lies in respect for the universally recognized rules, and in the following article attention will be drawn to the provisions of humanitarian law which apply to the protection of water in wartime (I).

The main purpose of this brief study is to show the importance of international humanitarian law, in particular the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols of 1977, for internally displaced persons, i.e. persons displaced within their own country, and to refugees, i.e. persons who have fled their country. Not only does this body of international law protect them when they are victims of armed conflict, but its rules — if scrupulously applied — would make it possible to avoid the majority of displacements.

The first issue of the Bulletin international des Sociétés de secours aux militaires blessés (October 1969) contains an appeal by the International Committee for ratification of the Articles of 1868 additional to the 1864 Geneva Convention. It is addressed to the Central Committees of the Relief Societies, with the request that they approach their respective governments on the matter. By the same token, the Committee proposed as recommended reading the work by Gustave Moynier, Etude sur la Convention de Genève, which was described as a guide for use by army officers and doctors to give them a better understanding of the provisions of the 1864 Convention, “to refute the objections of its detractors and, by demonstrating that this instrument represents a victory for civilization, to turn them into zealous supporters”. In the second issue of the Bulletin (January 1870), the Committee asked the Central Committees to what extent States had promulgated penal or other legislation and military ordinances or regulations relating to the stipulations of the Geneva Convention or action by relief societies.