Can the Red Cross help to maintain peace and should it not, alongside its humanitarian role, also fulfil a mission of peace? This is far from being a new consideration, raised by recent developments in the peace movement and by demonstrations in favour of peace.

Whether the Red Cross, by its very nature, is a factor for peace; whether its humanitarian work should finally result in eliminating war, are questions as old as the idea of the Red Cross itself. Very early on, Henry Dunant declared that it was not enough to relieve the suffering of victims of war but that war itself should be banned.

The legal protection of children was introduced into international humanitarian law after the Second World War. Experience during that conflict had, in fact, pointed to the urgent need to draw up an instrument of public international law for protecting civilian population in wartime. The results of the ICRC's efforts in this field led to the adoption of the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the protection of civilian persons in time of war. From that time on, children, as members of the civilian population, were entitled to benefit from the application of that Convention. Moreover, the first international humanitarian law regulations concerning armed conflicts not of an international character, contained in article 3, common to the four 1949 Geneva Conventions, were drawn up at the 1949 Diplomatic Conference. Here again, children were protected, in the same way as all “persons taking no active part in the hostilities”.

The Assembly of the International Committee of the Red Cross, in its meeting of 27 and 28 June, re-elected Mr. Alexandre Hay to the Presidency of the ICRC for a third term of four years beginning on 1 January 1985.

Mr. Luis Alberto Monge, President of the Republic of Costa Rica, visited on 12 June 1984 the headquarters of the International Committee of the Red Cross, in Geneva. He was received by the ICRC President, Mr. Alexandre Hay, and with him President Monge discussed various humanitarian issues.

The President of the ICRC, Mr. Alexandre Hay, accompanied by Mr. Jean Hoefliger, delegate-general of the ICRC for the Middle East, and by Mr. S. Nessi, chief of the Finance Division, paid a visit to Tunis from 22 to 25 March, during which he went to the headquarters of the League of Arab States. There he met the Secretary-General of the League, Mr. Chedli Klibi, together with Mr. Assad el Assad, Deputy Secretary-General, Mr. Moncef el May, the League's permanent observer in Geneva, and Mr. Ahmed Harguem, chief of the Diplomatic Relations Department.

From 2 to 6 April, the President of the ICRC, Mr. Alexandre Hay, accompanied by Mr. Jean Hoefliger, delegate-general for the Middle East, and Mr. S. Nessi, head of the Financing Division, carried out a brief mission to Saudi Arabia, where he met with government authorities and informed them about ICRC activities and the problems encountered by the institution, in particular in Iraq, Iran and Lebanon. The ICRC President also wished to discuss questions of ICRC financing.

On 11 May 1984 the Government of the Republic of Cape Verde deposited with the Swiss Government its instrument of accession to the four Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949. This accession brings to 156 the number of States parties to the Geneva Conventions.

The Togolese Republic deposited with the Swiss Government, on 21 June 1984, the instruments of ratification of the Protocols Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, relating to the protection of victims of international armed conflicts (Protocol I) and non-international armed conflicts (Protocol II), adopted in Geneva on 8 June 1977.

On 26 April, 89 persons (19 children and 70 adults) held by UNITA were released and handed over to a group of ICRC delegates in southern Angola. The group of persons released consisted of 68 Portuguese, 16 Filipinos, one Japanese, one Spaniard, one Italian, one Brazilian and one Pole; eight of them were missionaries.