One of the principles underlying international law applicable in armed conflicts is that no act of war is permitted against the civilian population, consisting, by definition, of persons who take no part in the hostilities.

Until the holocaust of 1939–45, international law gave practically no real protection to the civilian population in the event of war, and was not even intended to do so since up to that time war was considered to be a State activity from which civilians remained aloof. There were, nonetheless, general principles and rules in various international treaties which, in one way or another, related also to the civilian population.

On 4 July 1980 the Islamic Republic of Iran informed the International Committee of the Red Cross and the League of Red Cross Societies of its decision to adopt the red crescent instead of the red lion and sun as the distinctive sign of its armed forces' medical service. As a result, the Iranian National Society has changed its name and emblem. It is henceforth the “Iranian Red Crescent Society”.

The Assembly of the International Committee of the Red Cross has elected two new members, Mr. Olivier Long and Mr. Dietrich Schindler, who took up their duties at the ICRC on 1 December 1980.

Responding to a long-standing invitation from the Chinese Red Cross, the ICRC President, Mr. Alexandre Hay, was in the People's Republic of China from 2 to 11 November, accompanied by his wife, by the Director of the Operations Department, Mr. J.-P. Hocké, and by the Chief of the Dissemination and Documentation Division, Mr. R. Gaillard-Moret.

An ICRC delegation, led by Mr. Richard Pestalozzi, Vice-President, who was accompanied by Mr. J. Moreillon, director of the ICRC Department of Principles and Law, and by Mr. Ph. Grand d'Hauteville, regional delegate for Europe, went to Moscow at the invitation of the Alliance of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies of the USSR, and stayed there from 27 to 31 October 1980.

In a message addressed in French on 25 July 1980 to the ICRC and signed by its Information Secretary, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) made the following declaration:

“We welcome your assistance project for Angola and have requested the above-mentioned to notify you of the terms of our declaration of principle, as follows:…

An ICRC team of four delegates, one of them a doctor, made a new series of visits to places of detention in South Africa, from 12 to 25 October. In eight places they had access to 515 convicted prisoners and four persons detained under Section 10 of the Internal Security Amendment Act.