It will be recalled that the International Committee of the Red Cross addressed to the Governments of the Republic of Viet Nam, of the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam, as well as of the United States of America an appeal urging them to respect, in present conditions, the humanitarian provisions of the Geneva Conventions to which these States have acceded. This appeal was also sent to the National Liberation Front. In its number of September 1965, the International Review published the replies received by the ICRC. The one dated August 10, 1965, emanated from the United States Government and the other of August 11, 1965, was sent by the Government of the Republic of Viet Nam.

In a letter dated 27 May 1977, Mr. Mierre Micheli, member of the International Committee of the Red Cross, tendered his resignation from the ICRC for health reasons, with effect from 1 June.

The ICRC has appointed Mr. Ulrich Wasser to the post of director of the Central Tracing Agency as from 1 March to succeed Mr. Pierre Basset who has reached retirement age.

“Whenever a large organized group believes it has the right to resist the sovereign power and considers itself capable of resorting to arms, war between the two parties should take place in the same manner as between nations…” This statement by de Vattel in the 19th century seemed destined to take its place as a part of positive law, constituting part of what was known as recognition of belligerency, tantamount to the recognition by the established government of an equal status for insurgents and regular belligerents. When a civil war became extensive enough, the State attacked would understand that it was wisest to acknowledge the existence of a state of war with part of the population. This would, at the same time, allow the conflict to be seen in a truer light. The unilateral action of the legal government in recognizing belligerency would be the condition for granting belligerent rights to the parties. It would constitute a demonstration of humanity on the part of the government of the State attacked and would also provide that government with prospects for effective pursuit of the war. By admitting that it was forced to resort to war, it would at least have its hands free to make war seriously.

In the author's view the state of international humanitarian law as we approach the 21st century may be characterized by two major developments. The first is the trend away from well-structured conflicts between States and towards chaotic violence within the territory of the classic State entity. The second is the growing tendency to target civilians. The result is an increase in suffering and casualties among the civilian population. After considering the major obstacles to humanitarian action in present-day conflicts, the author looks at what she calls “the remarkable development of the international rules governing non-international armed conflicts”. She discusses ways of strengthening and developing standards applicable to such conflict other than formal codification of new rules. The paper finishes by stressing the decisive importance of making the law known among those who need to know it, particularly those engaged in violence.

Dans le vocabulaire des relations internationales, les qualificatifs de «neutre” et d' «humanitaire» sont bien souvent employés. Ce fait démontre le credit que l'on accorde aux attribute respectifs de la neutralité et de tout ce qui peut être désigné par le vocable «humanitaire».

Paradoxalement cependant, tant la neutralité que Faction humanitaire ne sont exemptes de critiques.

La XXVI Conferencia Internacional de la Cruz Roja y de la Media Luna Roja,

comprobando con gran inquietud el creciente número de conflictos armados que tienen lugar en varias partes del mundo;

alarmada por las graves y persistentes violaciones del derecho internacional humanitario que se cometen, particularmente en perjuicio de las personas civiles, incluidas las más vulnerables;

profundamente preocupada por la tristeza y el sufrimiento que causan tales violaciones;

deplorando la disminución del respeto del derecho internacional humanitario;

La question de l'ordre supérieur a donné lieu à une littérature abondante. En effet, la complexité du problème a pour conséquence qu'il n'existe pas de réponse simple. Sur la base du droit national auquel il est soumis, le militaire qui refuse d'exécuter un ordre peut être l'objet d'une condamnation pénale. Les codes pénaux militaires prévoient en général, dans les cas graves et notamment pendant la guerre, que le juge pourra prononcer la peine de mort. Or, le fait d'avoir exécuté l'ordre d'un supérieur, qui viole le droit international humanitaire, peut ne pas avoir pour conséquence d'exclure la responsabilité pénale du subordonné militaire.

Depuis plusieurs mois l'attention du Comité international de la Croix-Rouge était attirée sur la situation des indigènes fuyant la zone de combat du Rif pour se réfugier à Tanger. En novembre dernier, dans le Bulletin des Sociétés nationales de la Croix-Rouge, il annonçait le départ d'un délégué chargé de se rendre compte de la situation exacte de ces réfugiés. Parti le 24 novembre, le Dr Henri Mentha est rentré à Genève le 10 décembre. C'est le compte rendu de sa mission que l'on va lire ci-dessous (N. d. l. R.

In the early hours of 17 December 1996, six members of the Red Cross team working at the ICRC hospital in Novye Atagi, Chechnya, were murdered in their sleep by a group of masked men using weapons fitted with silencers. A seventh delegate was wounded but managed to escape with his life.

In 1899, the delegates at the first Hague Peace Conference outlawed the use of expanding bullets in warfare. Also known as “dum-dum” bullets, their prohibition was largely the product of a media spectacle that evolved around their use in British colonial warfare, a spectacle that focused particularly on the ghastly nature of the wounds these bullets inflicted. This article revisits the “dum-dum” controversy of the 1890s as it played out in the Anglo-European public sphere. It argues, firstly, that there was nothing all that innovative about employing the principle of expansion in rifle ammunition. Secondly, it shows that controversies around bullets and their wounds had existed since the invention of industrially produced military rifles – and soft-lead ammunition – in the 1850s. In 1868, the St Petersburg Declaration outlawed the use of exploding projectiles for many of the same reasons for which expanding ammunition would also be banned in 1899. The article also shows that many of the ideas mobilized in the early 1890s to promote a new range of cordite-powered full-metal-jacket bullets because of the supposedly “clean” and “humanitarian” wounds that they inflicted offer an important context in which to read and explain the prohibition of “man-slaying” expanding ammunition. Above all, the article highlights how powerful racist thinking and imperial imperatives were to the framers of the laws of war at the turn of the twentieth century.

Jusque vers la fin du siècle dernier, le Service de santé de l'armée n'avait guère d'influence sur le potentiel militaire. En nombre insuffisant, son personnel se bornait à relever et à soigner tant bien que mal les soldats qui tombaient et à distribuer quelques médications aux hommes portés malades. A cette époque, la science médicale était presque impuissante devant les maladies qui décimaient les armées et éliminaient deux fois plus d'hommes, sinon davantage, que les combats. Un chirurgien était satisfait si, sur cinq soldats hospitalisés, il en voyait un rentrer dans le rang.

Les auteurs des Conventions de La Haye de 1899 et de 1907 se préoccupaient, en reprenant les travaux de Bruxelles de 1874, de donner une forme conventionnelle et précise au droit coutumier réglant la conduite de la guerre, notamment sur terre. Ils se rendaient compte qu'une codification totale n'était pas réalisable à l'époque; mais ils ne voulaient pas admettre qu'en dehors des règles conventionnelles, les belligérants auraient un droit illimité à se prévaloir de ce qu'on a appelé «la raison de guerre » et à accorder partout la prépondérance aux intérêts militaires, réels ou prétendus.

Les événements qui, durant la seconde quinzaine du mois d'octobre, amenèrent en Hongrie de graves bouleversements sur le plan intérieur, provoquèrent, on le sait, à partir du 4 novembre, un vaste exode de population. Des réfugiés de tout âge, de toutes conditions, hommes, femmes et enfants quittèrent leur patrie, leur famille et leurs biens en vue de gagner le territoire autrichien.

Afghanistan's current difficulties are in large measure the product of a troubled history and a troubled geographical location. These have combined to produce a debilitated state, open to meddling from a range of external powers, that has now experienced decades of trauma. The current insurgency that afflicts the country is sustained by the sanctuaries in Pakistan from which the Taliban operate. Unless and until there is progress on this front, the situation in Afghanistan will remain stalemated.

Is remembrance an absolute moral duty or is it better thought of in more ethically constricted pragmatic and empirical terms? This essay argues that both individuals and societies should strive for remembrance where possible, but accept that there are times and places where more forgetting is the only safe choice to make. One may hope that at some point in the future the need to remember will sweep away a prudential decision to forget, but while we are within our moral rights to hope that, in a given case, forgetting itself will outlive its usefulness, conflating our wishes with teleological certainties is an exercise in hubris, not morality. But on no account should memory be thought of as a categorical imperative.

Si l'on en croit les estimations récentes, plus de deux millions de personnes ont sans doute succombé à la famine qui a ravagé la Corée du Nord en 1997 et 1998. En 1997, les Nations Unies ont estimé que 4,7 millions de Nord-Coréens risquaient de mourir de faim La communauté internationale s'est engagée à fournir une aide alimentaire pour faire face à la situation. La Fédération internationale des Sociétés de la Croix-Rouge et du Croissant-Rouge a lancé un appel de fonds élargi en juin 1997. En Janvier 1998, le Programme alimentaire mondial (PAM) a lancé le plus grand appel de son histoire, avec pour objectif de recueillir 380 millions de dollars en aide alimentaire, soit pratiquement le double du montant sollicité pour 1997. Pourtant, la communauté internationale s'est heurtée à une résistance lorsqu'elle a voulu aider les Nord-Coréens atteints de malnutrition et menacés par la famine.