These Guiding Principles address the specific needs of internally displaced persons worldwide. They identify rights and guarantees relevant to the protection of persons from forced displacement and to their protection and assistance during displacement as well as during return or resettlement and reintegration.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has witnessed in its work for war victims throughout the world the increasingly devastating effects for civilian populations of the proliferation of weapons, particularly small arms. The difficulties of providing humanitarian assistance in an environment where arms have become widely available to many segments of society are well known to most humanitarian relief agencies today. However, until recently the relationships between the availability of weapons, the worsening situation of civilians during and after conflict and the challenges of providing humanitarian assistance have not been addressed directly.

By way of introduction to their comments on the Tansley Report proposals on co-operation between their two institutions, the ICRC and the League refer to the legal and practical basis of their existing co-operation.

They co-operate at the highest policy-making levels, the International Red Cross Conference and the Council of Delegates. The Statutes of the International Red Cross provide that it shall be the duty of the Standing Commission between sessions of the Conference to ensure the co-ordination and harmony of the efforts of the International Committee and of the League (Article 10/3).

To ensure that it is respected, international humanitarian law (IHL) requires mechanisms for its implementation. Most of these are known and have proved their worth, whether as means of prevention, control or repression. They do however have their limitations and, in this sense, the International Fact-Finding Commission provided for in Article 90, Protocol I, fills a gap.

Of the 51 opinions handed down by the Court of the Hague (28 by the Permanent Court of International Justice and 23 by the International Court of Justice), there is little doubt that the two delivered on 8 July 1996 in response to requests submitted by the WHO World Health Assembly and the United Nations General Assembly will become landmarks in the history of the Court, if not in history itself.

Socrate conseillait déjà de définir d'emblée les notions que l'on allait employer dans un discours.

Depuis quelques lustres, on a pris l'habitude d'appeler « droit humanitaire » cette portion considérable du droit international public qui s'inspire du sentiment d'humanité et qui est centrée sur la protection de la personne.

La República de Malí se adhirió, el 8 de febrero de 1989, a los Protocolos adicionales a los Convenios de Ginebra del 12 de agosto de 1949, relativos a la protección de las víctimas de los conflictos armados internacionales (Protocolo I) y no internacionales (Protocolo II), aprobados en Ginebra el 8 de junio de 1977.

De conformidad con sus disposiciones, los Protocolos entrarán en vigor, para la República de Malí, el 8 de agosto de 1989.

Con esta adhesión, asciende a 80 el número de Estados Partes en el Protocolo I y a 71 el de Estados Partes en el Protocolo II.

Desde que la Asamblea Parlamentaria del Consejo de Europa aprobñ, en 1984, una resolutiñn en favor del CICR, éste ha efectuado numerosas gestiones ante los países miembros y, gracias al apoyo de los parlamentarios, tanto en dicho Consejo como en los Parlamentos nacionales, ha logrado que los Gobiernos de los países miembros incrementen su ayuda, principalmente en el piano financiero.

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 seventh largest city in Japan by population size, located on the mouth of the Ota River, whose muddy waters pour into the Inland Sea, Hiroshima had been almost spared by the bombing until the summer of 1945.

At dawn on 6 August 1945, four reconnaissance planes flew over the city and disappeared again without dropping any bombs. At 7:31 the sirens signaled the end of the alert. The inhabitants left their shelters and went about their business.

The ICRC has learnt with deep regret of the death on 29 October 1985 of Miss Monique Katz, the former Assistant Director of the Central Tracing Agency and a faithful staff member for nearly forty years.

This paper will briefly examine the legal obligation placed on States to respect international humanitarian law and to train their armed forces in the subject. The practical problems this can create and how they might be overcome will also be addressed. The approach taken by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to training in general and the particular approach being used in South Asia will be discussed.

The meeting of heads of delegation and regional delegates held in Glion from 19 to 22 January 1997 was a milestone in the recent history of the ICRC. Its aim was to mobilize senior operational staff around security issues in situations where humanitarian operations are undertaken. The recent tragic events affecting the ICRC (the assassination of ten staff members in Burundi, Chechnya and Cambodia) and the murder of three members of Médecins du monde as well as four United Nations human rights monitors in Rwanda, have highlighted the need to reassess security and humanitarian action on behalf of conflict victims.